Live in Reality
The false teachers in Colossae had a system of rules which they imposed on their followers. They said, “If you keep these rules, you will have victory over fleshly desires.” They took some of the Old Testament regulations concerning ceremonial cleanliness and diet and added to them, much as the Pharisees had done. Paul admits (Col. 2:23) that these rules had “the appearance of wisdom,” but, he adds, they “are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” Rather, Paul is going to argue today that methods of managing sin don’t produce godliness because they deny our reality in Christ.
We live in a very self-indulgent, get what you want when you want it, society and no one seems to care how much it affects other people or even how it affects us.
This is not just a Christian thing, listen to this quote from a New York Times article by Judith Warner, “We read about dopamine fiends sitting enslaved to their screens, their brains hooked on the bursts of pleasure they receive from the ding of each new e-mail message or the arousing flash of a tweet. We see reports of young children so unable to control their behavior that they’re being expelled from preschool. And teenagers who, after years spent gorging on instant gratification (too-easy presents from eager-to-please parents, the thrill of the fast-changing screen), are restless, demanding, easily bored and said to be suffering from a plague of insatiability.
Mental-health professionals report seeing increasing numbers of kids who are all out of sync: they can’t sustain attention, regulate their rage, moderate their pain, tolerate normal types of sensory input. Some of this is biological; a problem of faulty brain wiring. But many of the problems — in both children and adults — according to Peter C. Whybrow, director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California in Los Angeles, come from living in a culture of excess.”
Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of electronics addiction, I think we all need to just admit to ourselves and each other right now that we are far too self indulgent.
In the Bible, self-indulgence is described in 1st Peter 2 as feeding “the passions of the flesh,” indulging in any pleasure that is harmful to our souls. It is the opposite of that final forgotten fruit of the spirit, self-control.
Self-indulgence is so spiritually toxic because it is rooted in idolatry. It’s something we turn to instead of God for happiness. It dulls our spiritual tastes and curbs our spiritual appetites. It’s hard to have a hunger for anything when we are constantly shoveling entertainment into ourselves like we are at an all you can eat buffet. If we don’t take it seriously, it can turn our hearts away from God.
Self-indulgence comes in all shapes and sizes. We can all name obvious sins like sexual immorality, drunkenness, or theft. But perhaps the more dangerous indulgences are the ones that seem to be respectable. You know, the ones where the actions themselves aren’t sinful but behind the action lies wicked heart motives. For instance, Perhaps those good things that we do and feel good about ourselves for doing it is secretly indulging in pride and the pursuit of self-glory. Maybe it is just too much of a good thing, also known as greed or gluttony. Maybe I’m doing a good thing, but I have forsaken or forgotten a larger commitment that I should be doing, that is negligence.
Jesus addressed these sins when he saw them springing up in the Pharisees. In Matthew 23:23, He said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
I’m talking about self-indulgence because that is where Paul has gotten in this letter to the Colossians. He has in normal Pauline fashion laid the groundwork and established everything with rich theological arguments in the first two chapters. The main point is that Christ is enough. He is all you need. There is no need to indulge the flesh when Christ is your all in all. Let’s look at our text then we will dive into it.
Read Colossians 2:20-23, “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
I think that Paul is moving from the theological arguments into more practical information. This is the reason why we go through books of the Bible. I don’t want to step into Paul making a statement about how a Christian should live and just preach it as though if you just follow these rules you will be all set. That’s precisely the opposite of what he is saying in this text. Paul’s main point in this text that we are going to expound upon is: “if you want to fight self-indulgence and the flesh, you must live from the reality of who you are in Christ.”
Don’t Feed the Flesh
Back to self-indulgence. It is a very difficult sin for us to fight for the simple fact that we don’t want to. When we are in the process of indulging in whatever that bit of excess is, it doesn’t feel like an enemy. It feels like a reward that makes us happy, it feels like a rush of dopamine that comes when we succumb to a craving that has been gnawing at us. But after we have binged on what could have been a good thing, it hangs like a heavy yoke around our souls. That’s why the writer of Hebrews admonished his readers in Hebrews 12:1 to “lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely”.
Jesus doesn’t want us to live with this weight of defeat. He wants us to live in the freedom he purchased for us. He wants us to lay it aside. It’s a matter of obedience — and joy!
Paul starts with what not to do, then in chapter 3 he will give more practical details about what to do, but we are going to hang out here at the end of chapter 2 despite my temptation to just jump right over into chapter 3 but I might share a couple of things from Chapter 3. But we will dive into it in depth next week.
I was tempted because we just talked about legalism and ritual and mysticism and asceticism last week and at first glance, it looks like Paul is just rehashing the same arguments, but I think this paragraph (Remember, none of these verse numbers or paragraphs are original) is the first half of the thought of the paragraph the begins chapter 3. So I couldn’t cover it last week without getting too much information all at once.
Behavioral Modification Doesn’t Work Forever
In Colossians 2:20, Paul points out that we died to the “elementary principles of the world.” This is the same phrase Paul used back in verse 8. The phrase “elementary principles” means “first things in a series” or “rudimentary” things such as the letters of the alphabet are the elementary principles of written language. Paul specifically states here that he is referring to the rudimentary things of the world. He uses the same phrase in Galatians 4:3 stating, “So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.” Paul is speaking about foundational religious practices, and perhaps in particular, the ceremonial aspects that are part of the means by which the religion is instilled into its adherents.
The idea that he is trying to get across is that behavioral modification is not a pathway to holiness or freedom from self-indulgence. Think about raising kids. We train them first in behavior, then later on we add in understanding. We usually teach children how to do things before we teach them why we do them. The problem comes if we never learn the why. If we never have understanding about why we are supposed to do things then we are left as children doing things out of ritual and in ignorance. And Paul is saying that such ignorance can never bring us to maturity.
When Moses took the Hebrews into the desert out of captivity in Egypt, he was on a long babysitting assignment. The people were little children in the faith. They needed structure and a tutor. Moses had a rich personal relationship with God, but the people weren’t ready for that. They could barely wait to get a golden calf and start worshipping something because they had binged on worship of thousands of gods in Egypt. There was a god for everything under the sun, including the sun.
The law served as the tutor that would help to show the children the way even before they had the capacity to see the whole picture. The law isn’t bad or wrong, in fact we should and do continue to observe the law, but we do it from a different heart once we understand the meaning behind it. That is what makes the difference.
For example, I learned as a child that stealing is wrong. I remember being very young, hardly tall enough to see over the conveyor belt at the grocery store. But they still put all of that good stuff right there at eye level for me. I remember seeing something I wanted and picking it up and taking it out of the store. My mom found out I had it when we got to the car, so we had to go back to the store so that I could return it and apologize to the clerk. My childish mind now knew that stealing was wrong because mom got upset, I could not keep the object but had to return it instead and go through the uncomfortable experience of apologizing to a stranger. Stealing was wrong because there were negative consequences. Stealing was wrong for the same reason that touching the stove was wrong. It wasn’t pleasant.
As I matured and came to faith in Christ, I learned that stealing was wrong because it was displeasing to my Lord since He wanted me to trust Him to provide what I needed instead of taking what I wanted, and He wanted me to treat other people with respect and love since they are also precious to Him. I don’t steal today because I love and trust God and want to please Him even as I strive to love others as He loves them.
That would have been an impossible lesson to get through to little 7-year-old me especially when there was frozen food in the trunk in Florida. It doesn’t change the fact that unlawfully taking from another person could bring negative consequences. But more importantly, we don’t steal because it is contrary to love, not because of fear of punishment.
The same goes for much of the Jewish ritual and sacrificial system. I’m reading now in Leviticus and there is so much detail that went into the construction of the tabernacle, the tent that God’s glory resides in while the Israelites are in the desert. What was the point of it all? Well, I’m not God, but it seems to me like he just called out a bunch of misfits that barely even knew his name to be his chosen people. They needed a crash course in the holiness and transcendence of God. So first God showed that he had immense power by doing 10 plagues in Egypt. This forced the hand of Pharaoh but it also allowed the Israelites to learn that God was not someone to mess with.
Remember, these people were probably mostly illiterate. In Leviticus we also see the institution of the sacrificial system. Through this system, we can see that God is incredibly holy and that he takes sin very seriously. God makes this point very clear when Aaron’s sons offered unauthorized fire and were killed on the spot.
But, when the fullness of time came God sent his son. And Jesus is the superior sacrifice and the superior high priest. Whenever we turn Christianity into a list of moral dos and don’ts we create a bunch of obedient children who end up being resentful of the God who sent his son so that they might know the depths of his love. So Paul asks them, you’ve grown up and been taught. Why then do you want to go back to childish lessons and lesser sacrifices?
Man-Made Morals Fall Short
The wording of this next section is confusing with lots of different clauses and statements hanging out there. The translators have resorted to using parentheses to keep everything straight. The reason is that this is closer to the flow of how Paul presents this information in the Greek, but it gets jumbled in English. This is one of the reasons that I like the NIV.
Follow this logic with me: “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on merely human commands and teachings.”
Paul says in this one paragraph that all our man-made efforts to curb the appetites of the flesh through self-help principles and diet fads are lacking because they are based on human wisdom and human teaching. There is a lot here and we don’t have a lot of time so I want to focus on that phrase, human teaching or the commandments of men.
Jesus quoted Isaiah 29:13 and used this same word in Matthew 15:7-11, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
Oprah and Dr. Oz and countless others have made a fortune on creating a religion that is based on human wisdom and commands. They are rooted in these elemental or basic principles. Most people don’t argue with Oprah about stuff because it is so basic. There is nothing profound or new. If she has on a couple with a dysfunctional marriage, she brings out Dr. Phil and they talk about communication techniques mutual respect. It’s not that these aren’t good moral codes, but when you take a good things and turn them into god things, it is just more self-indulgence.
Verse 21 is an example of some of the worldly regulations that they were submitting themselves to. “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch.” Very simple rules. Think diet fads where people subject themselves to strange restrictions based upon questionable research to lose weight. The latest trend is Marie Kondo with her minimalism and eastern inspired tidying up. She acts as though if you limit your book collection to 30 books and get rid of anything that doesn’t spark joy that it will give you a better life. Unfortunately, this does a good job of getting your physical stuff in order but it is pointless against the sinful desires of the flesh.
Paul explains this by saying that these rules are all dealing with things that perish as they are used. That greek word for perish is phthora it means corrupt or marked for destruction. Paul is saying that those kinds of regulations about food and ceremonial cleanliness are all related to or referring to things that are passing away. Physical things.
Look around you. All of these things that you see are perishing. They are corrupt and and bound for destruction. Romans 8:20-21 says it in this way, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” All of creation is in bondage to decay and corruption. The tools that they are using are not made for the type of work that they need to perform. They are physical tools and they have physical purposes, but the problem is a spiritual one.
At the beginning of verse 23 Paul says that these moralistic rules relating to physical denial look like they are wise. It is what we think of when we picture something being Spiritual. Many of the holy or spiritual people we think of were big into self-denial. Think about Buddha or Gandhi. And don’t get me wrong, there is benefit and wisdom in self-denial. Christians are encouraged to engage in some ascetic practices. Things like fasting, or the mortification of sin that we will talk about in a couple of weeks. However, it is always used as a reflection of the spiritual reality that is going on in our lives. It is not some sort of path to enlightenment.
I think I’ve mentioned before that the most popular religion in the world today is not Christianity, or Islam, or anything else that we typically think of. Sociologist Christian Smith years back did a study and he revealed that what was at the root of most religious practices and beliefs was something he coined, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It uses a moral code rooted in some vague belief of a higher power to make us feel better about ourselves by doing good things.
That is NOT Christianity and I could go into a whole seminar on why that stool falls apart on all three legs, but since we’re talking about self-indulgence, I want to look at the therapeutic leg. When people do what feels good to them, it doesn’t mean it actually is good for them. And there is a good chance that the things we do to make ourselves feel better actually cause harm to ourselves or others. I think people are beginning to see the weakness of this kind of belief system and they are beginning to lash out against it.
There are a lot of different strains out there and everyone thinks that their human teaching is the solution. If I had to boil it down, I would say that moralistic is being replaced with relativistic because there is no real truth on which to base morals. So morals get based on some kind of vague ideal of love. Self-love, love for the environment, freedom for the oppressed, etc. It is agnostic at best and atheistic at its worst. And some people are realizing that the consumerism and consumption that comes from a man-made therapeutic framework is actually unhealthy, so they are pushing towards asceticism as well. If you can consider tiny-houses, solar power, minimalism, and Marie Kondo telling you that stuff is not the answer, asceticism.
I don’t really think you can go so far as to call that asceticism when you consider some of the ascetic practices of the past. But they are right, more stuff is not going to save you or even make you happy in the end. They focus on what the wrong answer is, but they don’t go far enough to tell you what the right answer is. It looks wise but it’s not.
Paul goes on to describe in verse 23 what that wisdom is really good for. It promotes three things self-made religion, false humility, and severity to the body.
Self-made Religion
Self-made religion is no religion. Isaiah 44 speaks about a man who chops down a tree, he says in verse 15, “He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!””
This is the folly of self-made religion, the finished product might look like something wise, but in the end it is just foolishness and works to feed our self-indulgence rather than deny it.
False Humility
As we talked about last week, this word that is translated asceticism is usually translated humility. We might call this a humblebrag. You know, we live in a time of unbelievable wealth and there are insanely wealthy people who will post a picture on instagram of their $100,000 Tesla electric sports car and put the hashtag #savingtheenvironment. And the crazy thing is that they would actually consider that choice of going with an electric car over some gas guzzling hummer a humble choice worthy of applause from their fans. That’s what man-made religion is good for. It promotes a false humilty and pride over nothing more than preference or even sin.
Severity to the Body
This severity to the body is more of what we traditionally think of as asceticism. Ascetics view the Christian life as consisting mainly of outward actions or restrictions as a means to communion with God and personal holiness. This gives an outward appearance of wisdom in combating fleshly indulgence and achieving holiness, but it also fails miserably because it can only change outward actions and not the heart. Only God can change the heart, and without that heart change a victory in living in a pious manner in one area will compound a failure in another.
Taking a vow of poverty or celibacy is a means of pursuing piety by controlling greed, materialism, the love of money and lust. However, lust and greed, like all sin, are problems originating in a sinful heart and mind. Voluntary celibacy is a hard road to walk when you are around the opposite sex, and many are those that break those vows even today. Becoming a monk or a hermit helped some, but also lead to fear of the opposite sex or sexual perversions.
When the idea of penance, having to suffer for your own sins, is added to the mix, self punishment becomes a perverted virtue. It was not uncommon for ascetics to wear not just uncomfortable clothing, but things that would cause pain such as clothing embedded with thorns or tacks and iron coats. All of this to no avail because there would always be more sin. Like someone on a diet, they may succeed in losing the weight by self-restraint, but the very longing for those forbidden foods reveals the condition of the heart.
No value in stopping the flesh
So what is the answer if all of these things have no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh? That is going to be our topic of discussion for the next three weeks. And it is the war of the Christian life until we see Jesus face to face and are robed in the imperishable. However, it all goes back to the very first thing Paul says in Colossians 2:20, “If with Christ you died…” or since he’s not questioning their salvation in Christ, the NIV translation gets the meaning right when it says, “Since you died with Christ.”
If you know Christ as Savior, then you were there in Him when He died on the cross. The law of God had put a curse on the human race, because we all have violated it repeatedly. We stand condemned under its penalty of death. But Jesus, born under the law, perfectly fulfilled it. His death met the just requirement of the law. Because we are in Him, we also died to the law. It no longer has power or jurisdiction over us who are in Christ.
You may not feel or experience this truth. But it’s a legal fact in God’s sight. Remember, in the Bible death always means separation, not cessation. So when we died with Christ we are separated from the law’s jurisdiction so that it no longer condemns us.
I think about the scene in The Shawshank redemption when Red finally serves his time and gets out of prison after 40 years in captivity. He gets a job at the local grocery store bagging groceries and when he needs to go to the restroom he gets his manager’s attention and asks, “restroom break boss?” The manager kindly tells him that he doesn’t have to ask permission to go to the restroom, if you need to go, just go. But after 40 years of never being able to go unless he had permission, freedom is frightening to him. His freedom was a fact, but he wasn’t living in the reality of that freedom.
That’s what Paul means when he says in Romans 7:6, “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” Or, in Galatians 2:19-20: “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.” Godliness comes through our identification with Christ in His death, not through man-made religion or asceticism.
Because of your sincere desire to live for Christ, some of you may be trying to live by all sorts of manmade rules. But the rules approach doesn’t work. The way toward a godly life and victory over sin is to trust in Christ as your Savior and then to understand who you are in Christ and to live in the reality of your identification with Him.