Today we continue on with the second half of Colossians 2 which deals with not getting caught up in human rules and rituals and with not worshiping beings that are not meant to be worshiped.
"Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow." (Colossians 2:18-19) There were evidently people in Colossae who were saying, "I'm unworthy to have fellowship with Christ! I will communicate with Him through angels instead. I'm not good enough to even lift my eyes to heaven, much less have the privilege of worshiping the Son of God. I will worship the lower beings---the angels." Paul calls this "false humility". False humility is actually pride in disguise, for when we acknowledge our humility we are no longer humble.
It's easy to see how these angel worshipers could lead others astray. They make debasing themselves look holy and admirable, when in actuality what they have done is "lost connection with the head" as Paul says. The head is Christ, as Paul clearly told us in Colossians 2:10. If someone cuts off our head, what are we? Dead, that's what we are. So Paul is saying, "Those among you who have lost connection with Christ and are worshiping angels have a dead faith. It's God's will that the body of Christ stay connected with the head---Christ---at all times so it can live and grow strong."
We don't need a mediator between us and Christ. Christ gave His life for us so that He could be the mediator of the new covenant between God and man. We can go directly to the One who became flesh and gave Himself for us. Asking an angel, a person who has passed on, or anyone or anything else to intervene for us with Christ is "losing connection with the head". We can't grow in our relationship with Christ if we don't communicate with Him personally. How do our other relationships grow? Don't they grow by communicating with that person and spending time with that person and learning about that person? Our relationship with Christ grows in the same ways.
Paul now moves to the matter of legalism which says there are things we should not eat and drink. The Gentile believers of Colossae have been used to eating any foods available to them, and Paul says they don't need to follow any human rules regarding diet. Following dietary laws won't make them "more saved" than they already are. "Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 'Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." (Colossians 2:20-23)
He asks, "Why get caught up in matters of diet when food is a temporary thing that 'perishes' as soon as it is eaten? Submitting yourselves to a strict diet or fasting from enjoyable foods as a display of humility actually causes you to serve yourselves instead of God. Obsessing about what you should or should not eat doesn't make you more holy; it can have the opposite effect of making you take more pride in yourselves."
Jesus said it's not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out of him. (Matthew 15:11, Mark 7:11) It's the condition of our hearts that either makes us right with God or defiles us. So what we need to do is work on our hearts, not on our diets. We need to draw ever closer to Christ in our hearts, not be puffed up with a false humility that says we are too vile to commune with our Savior. There is nothing we can do to "add to" our salvation; Christ has done all that was necessary to save us. But there is something we can do about our closeness to Him, and we don't achieve this closeness by following a list of rules but by communicating with Him and learning about Him. Naturally, the better we know Him the more we will be like Him. Naturally, the more we love Him the more we will live in ways that honor Him. These things will come about, not as we check off a list of rules, but as we daily grow closer to Him.
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