Forget Legalism. Cling to Jesus.

Today, we are going to examine some of the specific warnings that Paul gives to the Colossians at the end of chapter 2. It is from these specific warnings that we know what three types of false doctrine were being taught there – ritualism, asceticism, and mysticism. If those words confuse you now, don’t worry. We’ll see how they are all alive and well today and we’ll look at how each of them pales in comparison to our glorious Savior. Let’s look at our passage from Colossians 2:16-23. We’re going to focus on the first half this week, and we’ll wrap up chapter 2 and move into Chapter 3 next week.

Read Colossians 2:16-23

There have always been two great errors that have occurred in the church which are at opposite extremes from each other. And it all comes down to our catechism Question 7 that I posted on Friday. That question is “What does the law of God require?” The answer is “Personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience; that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love our neighbor as ourselves. What God forbids should never be done and what God commands should always be done.”

However, there are two errors that the church has traditionally fallen into on either side of this question. One is legalism and the other is licentiousness. One places all sorts of restrictions on conduct while the other removes those restrictions.

Legalism focuses on keeping the law as a means to godliness while licentiousness rejects the law with the belief that we have moved beyond basic things like rules. Instead we have freedom or license. Both claim to be the expression of true spirituality, but the reality is that both are poor substitutes for true spirituality that often lead to blatant sin.

For the sake of time, we’ll have to leave our discussion of licentiousness for another day, because today we are going to be focusing on the other side of the spectrum.

Legalism

Christians probably have tolerated no sin more than the sin of legalism. In fact, many Christians would probably be surprised to hear legalism labeled as sin. Legalists are often viewed as being a bit overzealous or perhaps as super-spiritual. But they aren’t thought of as sinning in the same sense as adulterers, thieves, liars, etc. They would argue that legalism promotes holiness.

Yet, Paul is teaching here in our text that legalism is an evil that must be opposed by those who have been saved by grace. Most of the letter to the Galatians is an attack on legalism and he offers some strong words against it in many of his other letters. In 1 Timothy 4:1-3, he went so far as to state that those who forbade marriage and advocated abstaining from certain foods were promoting the doctrines of demons. So clearly, Paul was no fan of legalism.

In Colossians, Paul is going to break his criticism of legalism into three major categories that were posing a threat to the Colossians. As we’ve said before, Paul doesn’t know these believers any more than he knows you or I. However, he knows the culture that they live in and he can tell them that false teachers of various types are out to pervert the gospel by which they have been saved. The same is true today.

Paul begins by warning the Colossians with the command in verse 16, “Let no one pass judgment on you” in regard to certain matters; and then in verse 18, “Let no one disqualify you.” Both commands are saying the same thing: We must strongly reject legalism in all its forms and cling instead to Christ.

What is Legalism?

At its heart it’s an attitude of pride. The legalist prides himself for keeping certain standards and judges others who do not keep to those standards.

The legalist thinks that he is made acceptable to God, either for salvation or spirituality, by his conformity to certain rules that he picks and chooses. Invariably, those rules are not things like loving the Lord with all your heart or loving your neighbor as yourself. Rather, the legalist picks rules that he is able to keep. Ones that appeal to his personal preferences, then they conveniently neglect or ignore the other things. The legalist often focuses on external conformity while neglecting the heart righteousness God requires.

With this definition, we can see that Legalism is much more common than you might think. It is a pervasive sin that stretches through all branches of Christianity. We set up our own rules that are of importance to us because of our ideals or theology, we take pride in those things that make us different and set us apart, and we look down our noses and condemn those who would seek to question our practices or traditions.

We’ll see today that all three of the perversions of the gospel that we will explore are just modified versions of Legalism.

Let’s explore how this works in our passage. The “Therefore” at the beginning of verse 16 connects our text to the previous paragraph and brings everything full circle to Christ. Paul is telling these new believers, under attack from these false teachers, “The law is merely a shadow which points to the reality of the absolute holiness of God which is on display in Christ. He fulfilled the whole law in every way. Therefore, we don’t grow as Christians by keeping laws, but by keeping Christ.” External religion leads to pride, but holding fast to Christ as the head leads to growth.

Ritualism is a shadow. Pursue the substance in Jesus.

The first distortion that we see is ritualism. These false teachers had set themselves up as judges to proclaim that anyone who didn’t follow their rules was not spiritual. These rules were rituals pulled from some of the Old Testament dietary regulations as well as certain Jewish festivals. Paul says, “Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.”

The problem that Paul has isn’t with the Old Testament Law. But these false teachers could have been going beyond the law as the Pharisees did. Maybe they took something meant for one group and made it mandatory for all. Or maybe they were putting so much emphasis on the observance of the festivals and celebrations, and sabbaths that they missed the point of them. The real problem is that they have lost focus. All of these good things that God put forward in his law were never meant to be elevated to be the focus. Instead, they were meant to point forward to Jesus Christ. Paul calls them a “shadow of what is to come,” but then adds, “but the substance belongs to Christ.”

When I hear "shadow of what is to come," I think of a movie trailer. Its whole purpose is to get you excited for the film that is soon to come. Once the film is released, the trailer is still around, but you would never point someone to the trailer except to encourage them to see the actual film. All of the Old Testament rituals and feasts were meant to prepare the people for the coming of the promised one. Jesus is that promised Messiah! All of the ritual should point to him as the goal.

Let’s take the Sabbath as an example. Some Christians argue that Sunday (a few argue for Saturday) is now the Christian Sabbath, which we must keep in some manner. Some argue that we sin if we think or speak about anything secular or worldly on Sunday. Thus if you’re chatting with someone at church and mention the football game, you’ve sinned! And you sinned even more if you watched the game on the Sabbath!

Advocates of the Christian Sabbath usually go further than that, adding many prohibited activities which they say violate the Sabbath: You can’t stop by the grocery store on the way home from church to pick up a gallon of milk. You can’t eat out in a restaurant on Sunday, because it requires others to work. On and on it goes!

However, I rarely see people announcing that Sunday or Saturday is the Sabbath so they are going to sign up for a 6 day work week to be more obedient. If we are required to observe Sunday as a Christian Sabbath, then Paul certainly was confusing these mostly Gentile new believers by not clarifying that in this text.

The New Testament commands us not to forsake assembling with other believers, and it indicates that the early church gathered on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day. That implies that it is not my day, but is Monday any less the Lord’s day than Sunday?

Hebrews 4 makes it clear that Sunday isn’t God’s Sabbath rest, Jesus is. We enter into his rest. Beyond that, it is for our good to cease from our normal activities once a week so that we can rest and join with the Lord’s people for worship and instruction. As Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

These false teachers were caught up with the shadow, but they were ignoring the reality! They were into all sorts of rules, but they weren’t into Christ. It would be like admiring some famous person, but when you met him, instead of looking at him, you fell down on the sidewalk and said, “Oh, look at this shadow!” That’s what these false teachers were doing. They were so caught up with the ceremonial aspects of the law that they missed the One to whom those ceremonies and laws pointed! They were hugging His shadow, but missing Christ Himself! So let’s seek the substance of Christ rather than the shadow of ritual.

Asceticism boasts in humility. Submit to Jesus.

Next, Paul turns his sights to those that “insist on asceticism” (ESV). This is a confusing translation in ESV because the ESV translators took the greek word that is translated “humility” in every other context in the New Testament and changed it to this big fancy word, Asceticism in the two phrases in Colossians 2.

I think that the other translations do a good job at communicating Paul’s idea. NASB says “delighting in self-abasement.” and both the New King James and NIV say “delight in [false] humility.”

The context makes it clear that the humility being described here is not the same as the humility that is praised throughout the rest of the Scriptures. True humility comes from a correct understanding of both God and your position before Him. The people described here neither properly understand God or their position before Him as seen by this phrase being tied directly to the next phrase in which they worship angels.

Some of these false teachers held the idea that man being material cannot directly approach God who is spirit. They taught that to reach God you had to go through a series of intermediaries that were lower than God but higher than man. That is how they viewed angels. These teachers taught against Jesus being both fully God and fully man because in their minds’ Jesus had to be either one or the other or some intermediate being because God and man can’t mix.

Do you get the ironic humor in Paul saying that these false teachers are boasting in their idea of humility. However, as they sought to worship angels as intermediates they entered into false worship. It does take humility to see yourself as unworthy to have direct contact with God, but the worship of anything else as a substitute goes directly against God’s commandments to worship only Him.

This act of disobeying God in order to do what you think is better is actually pride, not true humility. To worship something other than God shows complete disregard for His commands and places the person doing so under God’s condemnation and wrath.

God is generally patient with his wrath. He sends His people to proclaim the truth to the unbelieving and correct errant believers. He allows the natural consequences of sin to prod us to repentance, and specifically chastens those who belong to Him to discipline them back into a proper walk with Him. But He may also withhold His mercy and the judgment of His wrath may come suddenly, as it did with Ananias and Sapphira. So we should never presume upon the patience of God.

Here in verse 18, the emphasis is that false teaching led to false humility which resulted in the false worship of angels. We cannot allow the pressure placed upon us by others who fake humility and piety to get us to join in their practices. We must be firm in being truly humble by submitting ourselves to the Lord God and obeying His commands and the principles and precepts of His word instead of the religious musings and practices of men.

In the case of the Colossians, they would have been trading in the worship of God for the worship of demons. I say that because any righteous angel would have rejected their worship like the angel in Revelation 22:8 did to John. The angel said, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book; worship God.” These demons might have taken the appearance of an angel of Light but they were leading the people down a very dark path.

The tragedy is that such practices continue to this very day. There are several religions which instruct their followers that they cannot go to God directly, or that even if they could, it is better to go through some intermediary. That mediator may not be described as an angel, but remember that worship – which includes religious veneration – of anything other than God is false worship.

So, those who pray to Mary or any of the saints have succumbed to this same lie and end up in false worship for they believe their way – their religious system – is better than obeying what God has said about how to approach Him. I praise God that because of the Lord Jesus Christ I can come with confidence directly before His throne of grace to find help in my time of need. Jesus Himself taught us to pray addressing our Creator as “Our Father, which art in Heaven.” Why then would I seek to pray to any other being?

Mysticism proclaims visions. See Jesus in his Word.

The next danger Paul mentions is the person who is “going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind.” There are still pagan traditions in which people sit around a campfire and take hallucinogenic drugs and seek visions and some form of revealed knowledge. People who claim to have such visions are seen as spiritually superior and therefore people to be followed. It would be easy for false teachers to claim that they have had revelatory visions. Remember that demons are active and can often mimic what God does, so those claiming the vision may actually have had a vision, though its source was demonic.

Mysticism has always posed a danger to the people of God because those practicing it claim it is from God and the danger of mysticism continues to the present time.

In the Word of Faith movement, they teach that if you don’t exhibit a particular spiritual gift, namely speaking in tongues that you haven’t been holy ghost baptized and aren’t a true believer. This is very similar to what was occurring in Colossae. A person would claim to have had a vision from God and then take a stand on it as the source of authority for himself and for telling others what to do or not do.

Before you think this is just an issue within Charismatic churches, Fundamental churches can also have this problem, though it will certainly be phrased differently. Instead of “the Lord gave me a word of knowledge” you will hear things such as “the Lord spoke to my heart.” Instead of a vision, they might say “we prayed about it and the vote was unanimous” as if praying about something and having unity automatically means it is what God wants.

We stand on the word of God alone as the revelation of God for our lives. God has already given us all we need to live godly lives because He has given us His precious and magnificent promises in His word. Others can stand on their visions and they will fall with them too – we are to stand on the solid rock of God’s revelation of Himself and His will in His written word, the Bible.

There will always be those around who feign humility and spiritual piety but in reality, are proud and carnal. The sad thing is that they usually do manage to get some others to believe their foolish facade and so inflict damage on them and the rest of the church.

The division that it causes is almost never over an actual honest disagreement about a significant doctrine. If it is over a doctrine, it is over some very minor issue, but more often than not, the issue is one of power to be able to enforce personal preferences. We should beware of anyone who thinks more highly of themselves than they ought.

How can such people be readily identified and what is the protection against them. Paul explains in verse 19 that they do not hold fast or cling to the head, which is Christ.

Cling to Jesus as the head of His body, the church.

To put that positively, we should reject legalism in all of its forms and cling to Jesus as the head of the church. Colossians 2:19 says that these false teachers are doing other things “and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”

Throughout Colossians, Paul has shown the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Holding fast to Christ as the head is the key to “growth which is from God.” Here are three quick principles to do this.

Keep your focus on Jesus first

Our number one priority should be to worship God. And yet it’s easy to slip into being worship-centered rather than God-centered. We hug the shadow of various styles of worship and forget that we’re supposed to be exalting the Head of the church, who gave Himself for us on the cross.

We can even get caught up with Bible knowledge, which is a good thing if used properly. But they get puffed up with pride over being right or understanding truths that others don’t get. When we do this, we use the Scriptures to exalt ourselves, and we’ve forgotten that the point of the scriptures is to exalt Jesus.

God didn’t give us the Bible to fill our heads with information; He gave it so that we would come to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and to eagerly wait for His coming as our Bridegroom. Don’t get centered on things other than Christ!

Start and stay in union with Jesus

Your body parts are joined to you in a living way. You can’t tape an arm to a person who is missing one and expect it to function. There must be a living organic connection or that limb will be useless. Becoming a Christian is more than attending church, going through the outward motions of Christianity, and keeping some religious rules. It means being joined to Jesus Christ in a living way, so that you’re “in Him.” You don’t just join a church; you are joined to Christ Himself as a member of His body.

There is an idea here that we have some responsibility to hold fast to Him. The Bible compares our relationship with Christ to marriage. When Teresa and I were married, we became one flesh. But the relationship that we began that day has to be maintained. It doesn’t grow on autopilot. Getting to know her more deeply requires time spent together. I have to learn what pleases her. I have to reject temptations to go after other women. I have to hold fast to her in love. The same is true in my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Submit to Jesus as the Head

The head controls the body. If your body isn’t responsive to the direction of your head, you’ve got big problems. The fact that Jesus is the head of His body, the church, means that He is the Lord of the church. He gives the orders; we must submit to Him.

There is a crazy idea out there that you can receive Jesus as your Savior, so that He becomes your fire insurance policy, protecting you from hell. But, submitting to Him as your Lord is optional for later on. So if you just want to be a nominal, occasional Sunday Christian who isn’t subject to Jesus as Lord, don’t worry! That decision that you made as a child in Sunday school or at church camp to invite Jesus into your heart cinched it up. You’ll still go to heaven, even if you don’t obey Jesus as Lord.

But as we saw in Colossians 1:23, the evidence of truly being reconciled to Christ is that “you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel ….” Elsewhere Paul clearly warns us not to be deceived, because, “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” We’re not holding fast to Christ as head if we live consistently in disobedience to Him.

Be an active part of Jesus’ body

The other part of being under the headship of Christ is being part of the body, the church. Being a Christian is not an individual matter. The body only grows when every member lives in dependence on the head and in interdependence with the other members.

Modern culture hates this idea of interdependence. We have a very independent view of life in general and of the Christian life. It’s God and me, but not me and my brothers and sisters in the church. This is reflected in the attitude that you “attend church,” much as you would attend a movie, but you aren’t closely involved with the other attenders. You come, you greet a few people casually, watch the show, and then leave. But you aren’t involved with any believers until you attend the next Sunday.

That’s not New Testament Christianity! For the church to grow with a growth from God, we must hold fast to the head. But, also, we must be closely joined to other members of the body, just as the joints and ligaments hold our physical bodies together.

Conclusion

Legalism is dangerous because at a minimum it replaces the reality of true life in Christ by walking in His spirit with the shadow of religious observances. It can be so severe as to replace the gospel of God’s grace with the false gospel of self-righteousness by works.

We are not under the law of Moses, but we are under the law of Christ learning to obey whatsoever He has commanded (Matthew 28:20). Therefore let us walk by the Spirit of God, and not in our flesh, and bring glory to our God by clinging to Jesus so that we might reflect Christ living through us.