Transcript

There is a true story of a missionary family who had returned from the mission field and gave up being missionaries altogether.

The reason for it was that they had encountered unbelievably small-minded legalism again and again in the field from fellow missionaries. And incredibly, the core reason for their departure from mission work was…peanut butter.

The particular place they were sent to serve the Lord did not have access to peanut butter. And this family happened to enjoy peanut butter a great deal.

Creatively, they made arrangements with some of their friends in the States to send them peanut butter every now and then.

The problem was that they didn’t know until they started receiving their supplies of peanut butter that the other missionaries considered it a mark of spirituality that you not have peanut butter.

The other missionaries believed that since they couldn’t get peanut butter there, they should give it up for the cause of Christ, and so a basis of spirituality among them became living without peanut butter.

The young missionary family didn’t buy into that line of thinking. Their family kept getting regular shipments of peanut butter. They didn’t flaunt it; they just enjoyed it in the privacy of their own home. But pressure began to intensify.

The legalism was so petty, the pressure got so intense, and the exclusive treatment became so unfair, it finished them off spiritually. Unable to continue against the mounting pressure, they packed it in and were soon homeward bound, disillusioned.

Legalism was present in and around the Colossians. And the Apostle Paul was concerned that it would tear down and discourage them in their walk. Legalism is a grace-robber; it is the pursuit of holiness by self-effort.

The believer’s life, under grace, is not about keeping the law or a list of rules. Rather, as members of the Church, the Body of Christ, living the Christian life under grace is about our relationship with our living Head, Jesus Christ, in light of our liberty in Him.

Colossians 2:16-17: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”

The ”therefore” in “Let not man therefore” points back in the context to our completeness in Christ, the triumph of His Cross, and Christ’s “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us.”

At the Cross, Christ erased and wiped out the ordinances, the demands, and the condemnation of the law and took it out of the way. And we are free from the law.

Thus, Paul teaches the Church under grace to “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.”

The Colossians were taught that since they were complete in Christ and were free from the law and its observances, they were to let no one sit in judgment of them for living by grace and in their freedom from the law.

They were not to allow someone to have power over them and permit them and their mistaken opinion and beliefs concerning keeping the law to influence their conduct.

Paul was reminding them that they were not responsible to man for their conduct but to the Lord. And no person has a right to impose the law on us as a burden from which Christ has made us free.

The issue being dealt with by Paul was one’s spirituality in light of being complete in Christ. And he shows that just like our salvation is all Christ and all grace, so is our walk and growth in spirituality. It is not Christ and the law, but Christ alone by grace.

So Paul told the Colossians to not let any person judge them “in meat, or in drink.” This pertains to the prohibitions concerning food and drink within the dietary regulations of the law of Moses.

Jewish law restricted certain foods, and God labeled certain foods as clean and unclean. But after the conversion of Saul in Acts 9, with the change in God’s dealings with mankind from law to grace, Peter was given a vision concerning food in Acts 10.

There, when Peter was hungry, he saw a vision of a sheet descending to him from heaven with “all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.” The Lord told him to “Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.”

Peter objected that in his keeping of the law, he had never eaten anything unclean. But the Lord told him, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common” or unholy.

Under grace, there are no prohibitions on food. We are free from the law’s legalistic restrictions concerning food. God has cleansed all food today, and the dietary regulations of the law are no longer in force under grace.

Thus, we should “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink” today, because, as Paul tells us, “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused” (1 Tim. 4:4).

Paul added, “Let no man therefore judge you…in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.”

In order, Paul gives annual, monthly, and weekly celebrations under the law in this verse. “An holyday” refers to the festivals of Israel, one of the seven annual feast days under the law, which are Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks: (or Pentecost), Feast of Trumpets: (Rosh Hashanah), Day of Atonement: (Yom Kippur), Feast of Tabernacles: (also known as Booths or Sukkot).

These feasts are still carried out by those who follow Judaism today, and that is why you often see them noted on calendars.

“New moon” was the monthly observance and monthly festival on the first day of each month in accordance with the law (Num. 28:11-14).

“Sabbath days” was the weekly observance and celebration of the seventh day in which they abstained from all work. It also included the special sabbath days associated with the celebrations of the feasts. We are not required to keep the Sabbath or to worship on the Sabbath under grace.

Christ has blotted out all these requirements, decrees, and ordinances, these things that were once required to be carried out by faith for acceptance with God under the law. Today, it is not right for us to observe these things under grace.

Paul said that these things of the law “are a shadow of things to come.” The writer of Hebrews also states: “For the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things” (10:1).

A shadow is not the real thing and has no substance. It is an image cast by an object which represents its form. The reality is what makes the shadow.

David Dykes tells the following story:

“When I was growing up in L.A. (Lower Alabama), we usually had four or five dogs and cats to claim as our pets. By virtue of being the oldest child, my older sister, Judy, demanded the right to name all our pets.

“We had a dog that was part German Shepherd, which Judy named Rex. While Rex was a ferocious-looking dog, he was a chicken at heart. He was scared of everything.

“None of our pets ever came inside; they were ‘yard pets.’ But once when it thundered, Rex was so frightened he broke through the screen door and came in and hid under the table!

“His bark wasn’t worse than his bite, because he seldom barked…and he never bit either. However, there was one thing that could make Rex bark.

“Sometimes when a bird or a flock of birds flew over on a sunny day, Rex often chased their shadows on the ground. I can recall watching as one bird flew around in a circle with Rex chasing the circling shadow on the ground, barking the whole time.

“Our poor Rex, he never figured out that the shadow wasn’t real.”

There are many today who chase the shadows of the Law and try to live by the law instead of grace or they mix law and grace.

But Paul didn’t want the Colossian believers chasing the shadows of the Law or to be influenced to prefer those Jewish observances over Christ.

For both the believing and the unbelieving, missing Christ, substituting shadows and religion for Him is a tragic mistake.

Being under Grace, delivered from the Law, complete in Christ, having “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and united to Him with Christ as our living Head, Paul did not want the Church to be influenced to live by the shadows of the law, when we have Christ.

Having the Reality, spirituality under grace does not consist of merely keeping external rules of the law, but having an inner relationship with Christ by grace, carried out in our freedom from the law, being guided and led by Christ’s grace instruction for the Church as found in Paul’s letters.

Paul wrote, “but the body is of Christ.” Christ is the “body,” or the substance of the shadow, He is the reality casting the shadow. Christ is the reality to which the shadows pointed.

The “shadow” of the law and its ceremonies foreshadowed many things about Christ’s person and work before He came historically, and He fulfilled them as the body, or the substance, the reality of the shadow.

For example, the Passover was a shadow of Christ’s sacrificial death as the Lamb of God. The Feast of Firstfruits was a shadow of Christ’s resurrection. The Sabbath day was a shadow of the millennial rest Israel will one day have in Christ.

The point Paul is making that why look at the shadow when we can look to Christ? The law and its shadows are not to be added to Christ. The law has been taken out of the way, and Christ alone is sufficient for our Christian lives.

Grace points us to the supremacy of Christ and the completeness of His saving work.

The believer under grace should not for a moment submit to any teaching which would supplant the reality of Christ for ritual, or replace our vital freedom in Him with a religion of external observances and rules which are obsolete and not in force under grace.

Colossians 2:18-19:

“Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

“And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.”

The first problem Paul dealt with here was that the shadow of the law was preferred over the Reality of Christ. The second problem here is preferring inferior beings to the Head.

Paul had shown that the handwriting of ordinances had been erased and taken out of the way by the Cross of Christ, and he showed that we are complete in Christ, “which is the head of all principality and power.”

Then he told the Colossians to not let anyone judge or condemn your actions in not keeping the law of Moses. And he added, don’t let anyone beguile you of your reward by leading you to worship angels.

In other words, have nothing to do with living by the law or worshipping angels. Keep your eyes on Christ, Who took the law away and is greater than the angels.

Paul tells the Colossians, “Let no man beguile you of your reward,” or don’t let anyone defraud or rob you of your prize.

Because we are complete in Christ, we cannot be robbed of our salvation, but we can be robbed of a reward, and we can experience that future loss.

Paul didn’t want anyone leading the Colossians away from Christ, from taking their eyes off of Him and getting them fixed on some lesser person.

The Colossians were in danger of becoming distracted and diverted as they ran the Christian race and of not staying on the track.

And believers who are turned away from serving and following Christ and are led to follow after and worship lesser things will be robbed of the rewards they could have had when they stand before the Lord at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

And Paul says that some who were leading believers astray and away from Christ in Colosse had a “voluntary humility.” This is speaking of humility in an ironic sense, of a self-imposed, false humility. It refers to taking delight in humility. In other words, they were proud to be humble!

And their false humility was expressed in worshiping angels, as they were reverencing and elevating angels and making them mediators or intercessors.

In their feigning humbleness, believing themselves to be unworthy to appeal directly to God, they instead were worshipping angels and appealing to God through them.

As they attempted to establish support and authority for themselves and their teachings, the false teachers claimed to have seen visions of angels or from angels.

But Paul sets the record straight, and says they were “intruding into those things which he hath not seen,” or they had not seen anything. They had imagined their visions and invented their revelations.

And while they made a show of humility, in truth, Paul says, they were “vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,” or inflated with conceit and dominated by their flesh.

Worshipping of angels is still with us even today. But God’s Word is clear that we are to only worship God.

The Lord Himself told Satan in the wilderness when Satan tried to get Him to bow down to him: “For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. 4:10).

The angels in heaven themselves do this, as they constantly worship God alone. In Revelation, when the Apostle John attempted to worship an angel, he was rebuked by the angel and told to “Worship God.”

This “worshipping of angels” was one reason why Paul made it very clear in this letter that by Christ “were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers” (1:16).

And of the fallen angels, Paul had just written that because of the glory and victory of His Cross, Christ “spoiled principalities and powers, [and] he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

Christ is the Creator and Lord over of all angelic ranks and orders. And He triumphed over all the fallen angels. Christ alone, the Creator and Savior, is worthy of our worship, not any angels.

In their pride and false doctrine in worshiping angels, these false teachers were “not holding the Head,” or not holding fast or clinging to Christ. Colossians 1:18 says of Christ, “And He is the head of the body, the church.”

To worship angels is to miss and misunderstand the Headship of Christ over the church. We must not substitute anything for Christ. As our Head, Christ is Lord over the Church. And He alone is the One we worship, serve, and hold fast to in the Body of Christ.

We must hold fast to Christ and, in doing so, hold Him supremely above all, because that is His rightful place.

We cannot live the Christian life without Christ, the Head. It is He, the Head, Who gives the instruction and guidance for the Church through the revelation of His Word.

And we must hold closely to His Word, and Paul’s epistles in particular, so we live by Christ’s direct will for His Church under grace.

If we do not hold fast or stay close to the Lord in our personal relationship with Him, we will lack in our Christian lives what Christ supplies.

But as we do hold fast to Christ, we cling to the One, “In Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” and “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

And as Paul tells us, it is from the Head, “from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.”

As our Head and our God, Christ supplies His Church, the Body, with spiritual nourishment, life, truth, wisdom, direction, and strength. Christ provides what the Church needs by His grace.

And He knits and compacts it together. By faith, we hold to the One who holds the whole Body together. Christ holds the Body together, and we are joined to Him. And by Paul’s mention of “the joints and bands” or ligaments, it shows the uniting, joining, and the connection of the Body to one another and how the members depend on each other.

The Body and its members grow in and through Christ and His life. Paul says that the Body “increaseth with the increase of God” through the Head of the Church.

Spiritual growth comes to the Church from our connection with Christ. And holding fast to the Head emphasizes the need for our dependence on the Lord. The closer our walk and relationship with Him, the greater we will increase in Him and be more like Him.

Colossians 2:20-23:

“Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

“Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.”

Paul returns to speak of the law of Moses in these verses. When Paul wrote, “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world…” this refers to our spiritual baptism and that we were crucified with Christ.

“The rudiments of the world” refers to the law of Moses. In Galatians 4:3, Paul wrote,

“Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.” The word “elements” in Galatians and “rudiments” in Colossians are translated from the same Greek word.

The Mosaic law is rudimentary and elementary compared to life under grace. The Mosaic law tied people to rules and regulations that kept them in bondage to the external.

Under grace, our lives are governed by grace, our freedom in Christ, the internal strength of the Holy Spirit, and the Word, rightly divided.

Paul is reminding the Colossians that when we died with Christ, we died to the law. We are free from the law, and that being so, Paul wondered and asked, “why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances.”

Submitting oneself to the ordinances of the law does not sanctify our Christian lives.

Christ does that. Holding fast and staying close to Christ in our relationship with Him, by grace through faith, is how we increase and grow spiritually under grace.

Speaking of the ordinances, Paul wrote that these ordinances of the law say, “Touch not; taste not; handle not.” To me, this verse sounds like a parent’s refrain with young children: don’t touch that, don’t eat that, don’t handle that!

But, “Do not, do not, do not” is also the refrain of legalism. Often, you find that a legalist sets himself as the criterion of spirituality, and their insinuation by their words and actions is that “You are not spiritual unless you have given up this or that like me.”

However, our growth as believers is not achieved by keeping laws and rules or denying ourselves this or that; rather, we grow by clinging to Christ and living by grace.

It’s been said that “The essence of legalism is trusting in the religious activity rather than trusting in God. It is putting our confidence in a practice rather than in a Person. And without fail, this will lead us to love the practice more than the Person.”

And that’s the true danger of legalism. We are called to love the Lord and to live for Him by faith in a personal relationship.

The law of Moses contains commandments concerning things that were not to be touched or handled, such as dead bodies. It also contained commandments concerning things they were and were not to “taste,” or eat.

Some of the Colossian believers were following the law and putting the law’s restrictions on what they should not eat, touch, or handle.

But Paul said that these things, under grace, “all are to perish with the using,” or they fail in their purpose; they do not restrain the flesh, and they do not have the value they appear to have for one’s sanctification and spiritual growth.

The Colossians were being made subject to the ordinances of the law “after the commandments and doctrines of men.”

Bad teaching was leading the Colossians astray, causing them to follow the law when they were under grace. To live by the law is to operate completely contrary to the grace of God that He is revealing today, and that is to be the rule of life for this dispensation of grace.

There is a lot of teaching today that puts people under the law. But we need to take our stand that, having died with Christ, we are free from the law, and that we live in the dispensation of the grace of God. And in our freedom under grace, we are to live by grace and by Christ’s grace instruction for us through Paul.

Paul then gave a strong indictment against legalism in verse 23, “Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.”

As to one who practices rigid self-denial and tries to follow the Law and its ordinances,

Paul says that they have a “show” or outward appearance of wisdom and spirituality. But it is just the appearance of wisdom and not real wisdom.

They do this through their “will worship.” Will worship is self-imposed worship and serving God through one’s own willpower in an attempt to religiously keep the law. It is not worship of God in Spirit and in truth, according to God’s truth for today.

In their “will-worship” and in the “neglecting of the body,” as they discipline themselves, they have “a show of…humility.” People who deny themselves give the appearance that they are humble and pious.

But like they have a “show of wisdom,” but it is not real wisdom; they have a show of humility, but it is only a show. It is not genuine humility. It’s pride.

And Paul says that all of this is “not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh,” or it has no value in truly controlling the flesh.

Man tries to be spiritual or tries to have the appearance of being spiritual by outward things. The thought process is that the more they discipline and deny themselves, the more they impress God.

But spirituality grows inwardly in the heart. We grow and mature spiritually through faith in Christ and the Word of His grace. As we keep our focus on our Savior and His grace, the things and ways of legalism fall away.

Our freedom under grace today is about living in the glory and blessing of our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.