COLOSSIANS – Part Six

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© God’s Breath Publications

www.godsbreathpublications.com

 

Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul while he was under house arrest in Rome. Epaphras, the pastor of the church in Colossae, came to Paul to share how well the Christians were growing in faith, but also to ask for help to address the issue of false teaching that was threatening the church. Paul responded by writing this letter of encouragement that is packed full of basic doctrine concerning Christ and the Gospel. It is unclear what the exact heresy was that was attempting to creep into the church at Colossae, but it had elements of Jewish observances of the Law as well as paganism and Gnostic beliefs. It is very relevant for us today, for we are surrounded by pagan beliefs and ascetic religious concepts, while at the same time dealing with a new resurgence of Gnostic conceptual influences. Paul in the following passage covers the doctrine of the persona and work of Jesus Christ. The best way to confront false teachings and twisted doctrine is to proclaim scriptural truth.

 

The believer who masters this chapter is not likely to be led astray by some alluring and enticing ‘new-and-improved brand of Christianity. The better a Christian understands God’s true revelation concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ, the better he or she will be able to recognize and refute false doctrine. Therefore Paul admonishes followers of Christ that they not be led astray by false teachers. Then he teaches us that Jesus Christ was fully God as well as fully human and has authority over all powers and authorities.

 

Colossians 2:8-10

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”

 

Paul was very protective of fellow Christians. He loved them, prayed for them and worked hard to support them in their faith. Here he gives them a strong warning not to be taken captive by the useless empty tricky thoughts and ideas of false teachers. He knew this false doctrine had its source in human fleshly reasoning that was based on worldly understanding which was very likely influenced by the demonic. Paul shared similar words with the Galatian Christians when he said in Galatians 1:6-9;

 

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”

 

We can see from this passage in Galatians that such false teaching is to be condemned by God. We also know that in the Bible anything stated over and over again is repeated to emphasize that it is a strong command. Paul states this condemnation twice because it communicates God’s anger towards those who would mislead His children from His truth. In Ephesians 2:8 the word “philosophy” comes from two Greek words, “phileo” (to love) and “sophia” (wisdom). Philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom. This is the only occurrence of the word in the New Testament! Men love their own thoughts dreamed up from their evil hearts. With such ideas they lead people astray so they can gain power and prestige as well as financial gain. Their man-made philosophy is basically just empty deception promoted by them against the innocent followers of Christ.

 

Those who have rejected Christ as Savior and Lord are deceived not only by their own thoughts of reasoning, but also by Satan himself. They are not free-thinkers and are bound to worldly thought because of their sins that have not been forgiven. 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 distinguishes between those who have not received Christ as Savior and those who have. It says, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’” But we have the mind of Christ.” Before we accept Christ as Lord and Savior we do not have the Holy Spirit within us to help us understand the spiritual things of God. Once we accept Christ, we are given the Holy Spirit to live within us. He instructs us in godly doctrine, convicts us of sin, ministers to us in times of need, and intercedes for us when we can’t find the words to say in our prayers. He is our teacher, guide and encourager. Once our eyes are open when we are saved from our sins the Holy Spirit can teach us the meaning and application of scripture so we can live it out appropriately in our lives

 

The false teachers who did not have a relationship with Christ relied upon their own mind and thoughtful inventions to dream up beliefs to live by and sometimes they would take Christian doctrine and twist it to suit their own plans. There is also always a danger of adding something to Christ or subtracting something from Him. The city of Colossae had its philosophers and the church there faced dangers from their influence. The false teachers knew about God, but they were not committed to Him and therefore they lived according to Romans 1:21-23, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,…” Paul is warning the Christians at Colossae to beware lest the worldly wisdom of men detracts from the knowledge and wisdom contained in knowing Christ. Only Christ can bring spiritual and intellectual satisfaction because He is God in the flesh.

 

Paul tells the Christians at Colossae what to avoid and refutes the claims of the Colossian false teachers. He warns against their claim to secret and superior knowledge. There is no hidden knowledge apart from Christ. He told them early in this letter that all treasures of wisdom and knowledge come from knowing Christ. He warns against the false Gnostic teaching that there were a series of lesser beings emanated from God. Here he states emphatically that “all the fullness of Deity dwells” in Christ. The Gnostic false teachers claimed that Christ was not God but simply an emanation in a long line of emanations and was not fully God. Later in Colossians Paul will warn against worshiping these emanations and angels which is what the false teachers practiced. He will also warn against legalistic ritualism that the false teachers were stating was required to worship and serve God. He will also warn against asceticism which is the doctrine that a person can attain a high spiritual and moral state by practicing self –denial, self-mortification, and the like. Paul does not want those who have been rescued from Satan’s domain to become enslaved in it once again. He wants followers of Christ to be grounded in the teachings of Jesus because that is where truth is found. Bank tellers are trained to examine and know what true paper money feels and looks like so they can detect counterfeit bills. The same applies to spiritual matters. If we know the truth of Christ contained in Holy Scripture, we will be able to detect lies, deceit, false doctrine and man-made ideas when they fall upon our ears and wish to enter our mind.

 

When Paul states in verse 8 “See to it” the word he uses in the Greek is “blepo” which implies a constant watchfulness. We must always be on guard of deceptive ideas that might pollute our Christian spiritual mind. This is just as true today as we are inundated by worldly philosophies and ideas via TV, internet and publications. Paul states that he does not want anyone to take them captive. The Greek word for captive here is “sulagogeo” and is a very rare word used only here in the New Testament. It is a compound word made up of “sule” which means booty and “ago” which means to carry off. Paul does not want followers of Christ to, in a sense, be taken captive as booty by the spiritual pirates of the day. He does not want them to be taken as a spoil of war in the spiritual battles that rage upon the earth. Paul alludes to this same threat in 2 Timothy 3:6. In essence he is concerned that the false teachers might spiritually kidnap the Christians at Colossae by using their philosophy and empty deception to delude them and led them away from the truth of God contained in Christ. These false teachers were appealing to the Colossians love for wisdom and knowledge and were trying to deceive them with trickery and fraudulent information that had no substance. Scripture is replete with warnings of false teachers and prophets:

 

Matthew 7:15-16 says, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

 

Acts 20:29-31-29 states, “I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!’”

 

2 Peter 3:17 tells us, “Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.”

 

Paul gives two sources for the evil teachings of unsaved men. They are traditions of men handed down over the ages that seem true because they are old well known beliefs that are often easy to believe and usually based on simple principles that have been created by mankind. To believe such childish immature man-made ideas is ludicrous because they are empty of wisdom and are the furthest thing from true godly knowledge. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 speaks of this empty wisdom of man when he says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

 

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” Galatians 4:3 tells us that before we were saved from our sin we were slaves to a false belief system, “So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world.” Now as a Christian we are spiritually alive because we believe in the truth of God, that Christ is God in the flesh and that He saved us from our sins by His death on the cross.

 

When Paul states that in Christ all the “fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form” he hits two features of the Gnostic belief system right between the eyes. They believed in emanations that grew further and further from the ultimate God and therefore grew dimmer and dimmer in their representation of Him. In Christ the “FULLNESS” of Deity dwelt, there was no diminishment of God in Him. Secondly the Gnostics did not believe the physical body was good and therefore could not accept Christ as a manifestation of God. Here Paul states that Christ was the complete fullness of God manifested in physical bodily form. “Dwells” in the Greek is “kataoikeo” and means to settle down and be at home. The present tense of this word indicates that the essence of Deity continually abides at home in Christ. Deity is a word emphasizing divine nature. Christ did not glow with God for a brief time, He was and always has been completely God. This fullness of Deity allowed Him to rule as “head over all rule and authority.” He was not one among many emanations; He was God in the flesh with the authority over all.

 

Before we accept Christ as Savior and Lord we are incomplete people. Once we accept Christ we become complete and we are partakers of His divine nature (John 1:16, 2 Peter 1:3-4). We are spiritually complete at salvation because we have fellowship with God. We are morally complete because we recognize the authority of God’s will. We are mentally complete because we know the truth about ultimate reality. But while we are positionally complete, our condition is far from complete. We spend our lives growing in knowledge and wisdom, obeying God’s Word and seeking to live as Christ would in our spiritual condition always desiring to be what we are in our justified position before God.

 

Peter speaks of this when he writes in 2 Peter 1:3-9 “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

Peter is telling us that God’s divine power in Christ has given us all we need to live godly because we have the knowledge of Christ. We don’t need more worldly wisdom or some amazing personal spiritual experience added to our life.

 

In the next part of this series we will learn about the fullness of our salvation in Christ and that we have complete salvation in Him, complete forgiveness through Him and complete victory because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.