Legalism and Liberty

One of the remarkable things
to observe about religion or spirituality is just how quickly
and easily legalism creeps in and becomes established in our
thinking and in our practice. And by legalism, I’m referring
to the keeping of laws or rules or customs or practices for the
purpose of or in order to gain or ensure one’s spiritual standing,
trying to earn your salvation. It can easily be verified that
every religion except Christianity sets forth works as the basis
of so-called salvation. A works-based system of do’s
and don’ts that must be honored if one is to be right with his
or her God within such a religious system. The religions of the
world are all just so many forms of salvation by works. works
righteousness, a myriad of different ways of trying to earn God’s
favor and thereby salvation. The examples are many, but the
problem is not new. There were works based religions
prior to Christ’s arrival, and there were works-based religions
during Christ’s time on earth, and there are still works-based
religions in our day and age. And so the pernicious error of
works-based righteousness was ever the Apostle Paul’s concern. To Paul, the gospel could be
boiled down to one key doctrine. that sinners are justified by
their faith in Jesus Christ, and they are justified only by
faith in Jesus Christ. So that some ritual or requirement,
as soon as it becomes rigidly adhered to, it begins to crowd
out and ultimately destroy a person’s confidence in justification by
faith alone in Christ alone. Justification by faith, the doctrine
that believers are declared righteous simply because of their faith
in Jesus Christ, that is the core of the gospel. To place
one’s hope for salvation in anything other than Christ is to look
to another gospel, as Paul warned the Galatians. And so here in
Colossians, Paul looks to warn this little mountain church of
a pitfall with which they were only beginning to understand. They were facing a list of things
that others were saying they must do in order to earn God’s
forgiveness and grace. We don’t know exactly who the
false teachers were in and around the region of Colossae, but we
do begin to hear of some of the errors that they were promoting,
especially here in chapter 2. Remember, this is why Paul is
providing these standards here in chapter two, he’s seeking
to insulate the Colossian believers from such false teaching as works-based
righteousness. Well, and the reason that I begin
with a foray into legalism this morning is that this is essentially
Paul’s concern in his fifth and final point in chapter two. He’s concerned about legalism.
He’s concerned about works-based righteousness. And as you recall,
we have for many weeks now been considering these what we call
examination points here in chapter two. Examination points by which our
Christian testimony can be measured. We proclaim Christ. We say that
we believe in Christ. We say that we believe in justification
by faith. And Paul says, let’s see, let’s
put that to the test. The Christian is, as Paul has
told us, the fruit of the gospel. But that fruit must be examined. And Paul has provided this series
of examination points for our Christian profession. And so
in chapter 2 verses 4 through 23, Paul has set forth these
standards. Would, if God’s people would,
please turn there once again, Colossians chapter 2. And when
I say that I’m going to give a quick review, I mean really
quick, under 60 seconds, in our review of the standards that
Paul has set forth already. One of the ways that we evaluate
ourselves and our Christian profession is in verses four and five. Are
we discerning? Are we wisely evaluating to see
what is offered to us? and if it squares with scripture? Are we discerning? Secondly,
are we steadfast? Are we solid in our faith? Are
we unshakeable of the things in which we profess to believe? That we found in verses six and
seven. We’re not weak, we’re not aimless,
we’re not flippant and vacillating. Discerning, steadfast. Third,
cautious. Are we cautious? Do we see the
potential for error in what is about? This is what Paul addresses
in verses 8 through 12. It just speaks of a generally
cautious demeanor that serves as a really a foundation for
the discernment that he had already mentioned. And then fourth, this
is where we’ve been for the last several weeks, verses 13 through
14, the regeneration to be enjoyed. There’s nothing
we can do to pay it back. There’s no way to earn it. It’s
all a work of God. All we can do is enjoy it. A Christian ought to be found
enjoying his or her newfound spiritual life granted by God. That’s the review. And so it’s
here in verses 15 through 23 that Paul issues his fifth and
final examination point. We would call this one the liberty
which must be guarded, the liberty which must be guarded. If you
would, let’s begin in verse 15. I’d like to read this section
in its entirety and we will tackle it as we go these next few weeks. Verse 15, when he had disarmed
the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them,
having triumphed over them through him. Therefore, no one is to
act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to
a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are a mere
shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in
self abasement and the worship of angels taking his stand on
visions he has seen inflated without cause by his fleshly
mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the entire
body being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments
grows with a growth which is from God. If you have died with
Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you
were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees
such as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all
refer to things destined to perish with use in accordance with the
commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which
have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion
and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are
of no value against fleshly indulgence. That’s Paul’s point, the fifth
in his series of points in this, the end of chapter two. And as
we have said, this fifth point is the liberty to be guarded. And that follows, as I said,
upon the other four examination points. That’s all that Paul
is doing here is giving us another point to consider. Now, I should
tell you up front, if you didn’t already notice, that this is
a very complex point that Paul is making here, his fifth. And
it’ll take us several weeks to work through all of it. There
are at least four parts to this final examination point. In verse
15, Paul tells us that Christ has vanquished all authority. In verses 16 and 17, Paul explains
that because Christ has vanquished all other authority, he alone
is our judge. In verses 18 and 19, Paul expands
upon this idea that he’s introduced about legalism, an idea which
is kind of hovered in the background all along, but here he exposes
legalism entirely. And then finally in verses 20
through 23, and on the opposite end of the spectrum of legalism,
Paul defends the believers’ Christian liberty. So, legalism and liberty,
that is essentially the theme of these nine verses that close
out chapter two. If I may, I’d like to point out
a couple of things about verse 15 before we dive deeply into
it. First of all, verse 15 functions
like a hitch pin between a series of verses. It connects us back to verses
13 and 14, but it also introduces us to the subject of legalism
and liberty in verses 16 through 23. The other thing about verse
15, where Paul proclaims that Christ has vanquished all other
authority, I will tell you about verse 15 that it is a rather
chewy verse. And by that I mean it is complicated. It’s challenging grammatically.
It is stretching theologically. One writer said of verse 15,
it is a difficult verse. The meaning of almost every word
is disputed. That’s not what you want to hear
first thing Monday morning. Now mind you, there are some
commentators that will find a controversy even in the clearest and most
powerful passage. But there are indeed some questions
that are hard to answer here in this verse. There’s a longstanding
controversy that we do well to handle right away. And it has
to do with the subject of the sentence. And by subject, I’m
not talking about the topic of the sentence, but rather the
doer of the action, the grammatical subject of the sentence. The
first question arises with the very first verb, when he had
disarmed. There’s no pronoun there. It’s
embedded into the verb itself. The same thing occurs in the
simple sentence, he made public display. There’s no pronoun there
either. It’s embedded into the form of
the verb. We could even press the issue
and look at the third clause and wonder who the doer of the
action is of this final clause, having triumphed over them. The question with all three elements
of that sentence is who is he? Who is the one doing these things,
disarming and making display and triumphing? Is it God the
Father? Or is it the Son, Jesus Christ? And those really are the only
two reasonable options here. It’s either God the Father or
Jesus. There’s another question to be
considered, if not answered, and the question pertains to
the pronoun at the very end of the sentence. Stick with me,
this will be short and relatively painless. In the Greek, it’s
the word, autoi, which could be translated either him, as
most of our translations have it, or it. We have two questions, really,
who is the doer and who is referenced by this pronoun? And the answer
to either of these questions necessarily impacts the answer
to the other. Let me show you this. If we decide
that the action of the verbs is carried out by God the Father,
the pronoun must be translated as Him, which would naturally
point to Christ. And you can see that this is
the direction that most of our Bible translators have taken.
God is taken as the performer of the action of these verbs,
disarming, making display, triumphing through him that is Jesus Christ. But that’s not the only way to
understand this difficult passage. There’s another way to interpret
this verse. The other way is to take Jesus, not God the Father,
as the subject, the doer of the action of these verbs. And one
of the reasons, by the way, that half of the scholars, and it’s
almost exactly 50-50, half of the scholars lean towards God
being the doer of the action, is that Jesus isn’t mentioned
in this verse. Nor even in verse 14, for that
matter. But that’s not an entirely fair
analysis. Glance at the majority of chapter
2. I’ll try and be careful here. It’s not a totally fair analysis
because in verses 4 through 14, Jesus is either mentioned explicitly
by name or he’s alluded to 14 times. He’s mentioned in verse 5, verse 6
twice, verse 7, verse 8, verse 9, verse 10 twice, verse 11 twice,
verse 12 twice, and again in verse 13. So it’s not like Jesus
is completely out of the picture here. But if we take Christ as
the doer of the action of these verbs, listen to this, disarming,
making display, and triumphing, then we stub our toe at the end
of the sentence. Because we cannot translate the pronoun there as
him. And the sentence becomes very awkward.
When Jesus Christ had disarmed the rulers and authorities, that
he, that is Jesus Christ, made a public display of them, having
triumphed over them through him, that is Christ. Doesn’t make
any sense. But there’s a simple fix to that. There’s a simple
solution. Remember, the pronoun doesn’t
have to be translated as him. It would be perfectly reasonable
to translate it as a neuter pronoun, it. And then we have to decide
what does it refer to here. And I align with the greater
number of commentators here by taking it as referring to the
cross. Just as mentioned in verse 14,
And now our sentence would indeed make sense. When Jesus Christ
had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he, that is Jesus, made a public
display of them, having triumphed over them through it, that is
the cross. Paul’s argument then is not only
was our certificate of debt nailed to the cross, but that same cross
was the means by which Christ disarmed, publicly shamed, and
triumphed over his spiritual enemies. Now, I don’t want to
make any enemies over this. If you want to take it the other
way, it’s perfectly fine regardless of how we take it, whether you
translate it God and him, or you translate it Christ and it,
the cross. Either way, God is doing these
things through Christ, or Christ doing these things by means of
the cross. The end result is the same. God’s enemies are defeated,
humiliated, and shamed. Let’s get into that part. We’re
considering that which Christ accomplished in his death on
the cross and not unlike in verses 13 and 14. There is a simple
sentence here in verse 15 with two subordinate that is explanatory
sentences. The simple main sentence glance
down at it. He made a public display. The other two clauses are subordinate,
secondary, and as I said, explanatory of the main thought. When he
had disarmed the rulers, and having triumphed over them, And
so let’s consider these two supporting statements first. There’s really
three things that we can observe from this passage. Three accomplishments
in Christ’s death on the cross. First of all, the first clause
there in verse 15, when he had disarmed the rulers and authorities. Paul tells us that Jesus What
Jesus accomplished on the cross was that he disarmed the rulers
and authorities. And the first thing we have to
figure out is who are these rulers and authorities? Was it Nero? Was it Herod? Was it all of those
public figures that figure into the gospels? All those of these
two terms can be used of earthly leaders. That is certainly not
the reference here. The verbs that are used to speak
of Christ’s conquest of them make that very clear. They were
disarmed. That didn’t happen to any earthly
ruler. They were made a public display. That didn’t necessarily
happen to any earthly leader. They were triumphed over. There
are still earthly public figures today ruling and leading. Paul speaks here of spiritual
powers. Earth, evil beings, fallen angels,
Satan, and his demons. Paul uses these same two terms
in Ephesians 6, which remember is Paul’s tandem letter to Colossians. And there in Ephesians 6, 12,
he says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood. But
against the rulers, against the powers, those are our words,
against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual
forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. He’s talking about the
spiritual realm and the ruler of the evil leadership there,
Satan and the demons. There he calls them rulers and
powers. He’s not talking about earthly
rulers and powers there either. The very language of both passages,
Ephesians and here, presents these as hostile forces resistant
to God and his plan of redemption. Jesus referred to Satan on another
occasion as the ruler of this world. Paul refers to him as
the prince of the power of the air. because these fallen angels
are contrary to God and they are tireless in their sinister
assaults on people. Their attacks began in the garden
with Adam and Eve, but they did not stop there. They have the
spiritual means to do people much harm. They steer people
into temptation and then turn right around and accuse the individual,
the troubled, soul before God, accusing him of the very thing
that they tempted him to do. Paul’s metaphor in full pictures
them as usurping God’s authority here, having their way, inflicting
their spiritual trouble until they attempted the very same
thing against God’s anointed, Jesus Christ. And that was their
undoing. The word translated here as disarmed
is a very rare word. The only two times that it’s
used at all in the New Testament are here in this epistle. Here
in chapter 2 and then again in chapter 3 verse 9, listen briefly. There, Paul is speaking metaphorically
of laying aside the old self. Our former selves complete with
its sin and evil practices. Its basic meaning is to cast
off something. Like we do with an article of
clothing, right? Like men do with their socks. So there’s an element here of
stripping off and casting aside something. And as we just learned,
that which is cast off is the rulers and authorities, the devil
and his fallen angels. Jesus tore away their power,
their weaponry. He stripped them of all their
authority and he cast them aside. In war, an earthly enemy is made
to lay down their arms in acknowledgement of defeat. And so here the image
is of Christ’s earthly foes, Christ’s spiritual foes rather,
stripped completely of their armaments, their vigor, their
strength, their vitality, and it pictures an utterly defeated
army at the full mercy of its captor. These evil angels can
no longer be engaged in a conflict with Christ. They no longer have
dominion over him. At his cross, Christ tore away
at the evil forces surrounding him, and he cast them aside. Let’s go to the other subordinate
clause at the end of verse 15. When he had disarmed rulers and
authorities, he made public display over them, having triumphed over
them through him. There at the end of the verse,
This clause also explains the main sentence. We just looked
at this clause a moment ago. I suggest to you that it is better
to translate the pronoun as it, but we can do him. That’s perfectly
fine. Essentially, Christ made a public
display of the rulers and authorities because he triumphed over them. And the clause really gives us
the how and the why of the public display that we’ll talk about
in a moment. His enemies have been utterly
conquered, thoroughly defeated. The word triumphed is used only
here in one other place in the New Testament. Second Corinthians
2 14. Just listen. But thanks be to God who always
leads us in triumph in Christ and manifest through us the sweet
aroma of the knowledge of him in every place. It’s a beautiful
verse. It presents essentially the same image with Christ leading
a victory parade. When he says us there in 214,
God always leads us in triumph, Paul is not speaking generally
of Christians, all Christians, he’s recognizing God’s constant
blessing of his own ministry efforts. Many souls were being
won for Christ, churches were being established, lives were
being touched and transformed by the gospel. God was leading
him in triumph. But here in Colossians 2, it’s
Christ’s enemies who are in view. The devil and his henchmen, the
demons, they are the conquered forces of evil over whom Christ
triumphed. And it would be hair-splitting
to wonder which came first. The disarming or the triumphing? Because the two things really
occur concurrently. Those two things would be done
at almost the exact same time. As soon as your foe lays down
his weapon, the war is over. You are victorious. It’s not
just that one enemy has gained an upper hand in the battle. This completely indicates that
the war is over, completely over. The question has been decided.
There’s a winner and there’s a loser. That’s what’s in view
here in the latter clause. It is Christ’s triumphing over
his enemies, who are, as we just learned, Satan and his demons. Look at verse 15 again. When
he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made public display
of them, having triumphed over them through him. So Paul speaks
of a triumph here, and we’ve already considered the particulars
of the pronoun at the end. Jesus has disarmed His enemies,
casting them down away from Him, and He adds here that He has
triumphed over them. Now, of course, it’s Christ and
His work on the cross that has won the victory. The point that
we’re making here is Simply grammatical, at the end of the sentence, it
only makes sense if we understand it that Christ disarmed, triumphed,
and made public display through it that is his cross. It was in Christ’s death on the
cross that he won the battle. The cross of Christ has been
the solemn backdrop for this entire passage. And Paul’s allusion
to it here is intentional. The world considers the idea
of a savior crucified on a cross, they consider that as foolishness.
First Corinthians 1 and 2. From a human perspective, Christ
on the cross was his greatest moment of weakness and shame.
And yet even in that, in his death on the cross, from God’s
point of view, He was victorious. He was victorious over death
and hell and is seen victorious over his enemies. Jesus triumphed
over the hostile forces of evil because of what he accomplished
on the cross. It was because of his work on
the cross that the devil lost his most powerful weapon. Death. Christ, in his death on the cross,
conquered death. He destroyed and took away that
potential to do harm. And now we come to the main thought
of the verse. He made public display of them. Well, those two details understood,
disarmed spiritual rulers over whom Christ has triumphed, we
come to this main statement of the verse that he made public
display of them. And this entire verse is a metaphor
drawn really from military leaders returning home as victors from
some great battle. And the whole verse presents
this metaphor. But this verse is the backbone
of this entire section, all the way down to verse 23. He has
disarmed his enemies and triumphed over them. But Jesus Christ accomplished
something else by his death on the cross. He made a public display
of them. This word means to display, to
publish, to proclaim. And Paul’s illustration here
would have been immediately understood by so many of his readers. Especially in the Roman Empire,
when a general returned victorious from battle, it was common to
return triumphantly with the spoils of war, treasures, and
all of those who were taken by prisoner. Like so many trophies,
they were marched through the center of the city. It was a
victorious military parade. The kingdom’s generals and soldiers,
horses and equipment would march in formation and those whom they
had vanquished marched behind them in tow. There was no quiet
meeting between two generals in some candlelit room signing
a peace treaty. The Emperor’s political, earthly
enemies, once defeated, were made a public spectacle. It was
meant to exhibit their utter defeat. It was intended to bring
humility and shame upon them. This, Paul suggests, is a good
illustration of what Jesus did with regard to his own enemies.
Ultimately, he made a public display of them. You know, the
only other time that this word is used, it’s used of Joseph,
Mary’s husband. He had only just learned that
Mary, his dear and precious Mary, to whom he was betrothed, engaged,
was pregnant. And Matthew records that being
a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, he planned to
send her away secretly. The last thing that Joseph wanted
to do was to publicly expose and shame young Mary. But Christ’s intention was otherwise.
With his foes conquered, he wanted to make their defeat known to
all. There’s a word in the original that gets kind of obscured in
our translations. That’s the word in the Greek,
parousia, and a good translation of it would be boldness. The
victory was not celebrated in secret, but openly, boldly, freely. God did not hold back on this
celebration. He boldly declared that by his
death on the cross, Christ has won. That he was victorious over
sin and death and hell. With the victory won and the
weapons confiscated, there’s nothing left to accomplish but
to humiliate the enemy in defeat, to make a public display of them. From the earliest occasion of
our own athletic activities, right? We’re told not to gloat. We’re told not to do this, to
gloat over our opponents in defeat. But this is war. And this is
the most the ugliest kind of war with the greatest stakes.
And one of the surest ways that an emperor would have of dissuading
other nations of waging war was to make a public shame of their
defeated foes. To publicly shame them. And Christ, or if you will, God
through Christ, accomplished this on the cross. Satan and
his enemy of demons threw everything they could at Jesus Christ. And
to human eyes, it appeared that Jesus had indeed been conquered,
vanquished. And yet Jesus triumphed in his
resurrection. And in his victory, he nullified
the devil and his demons. He stripped them of powerful
weaponry. He declared victory over them. and walking them as if by the
scruff of the neck through the streets and highways of this
world. By his death on the cross, Christ
triumphed over his enemies and led them defeated before the
world. What a magnificent truth is stated
here in this verse. The God in Christ has conquered. He’s one. Not only his enemy,
but our enemy as well. All of those evil forces of wickedness
which plagued and vexed humanity ever since the Garden Fall, they’re
defeated in an instant. Only the power of Almighty God
could have accomplished such a decisive victory. The redemption
of sinners. Jesus Christ, on his cross, paid
the penalty of sin in full. And in so doing, he Conquered
the enemy of souls This was a victory greater than any before or since
Christ shed blood there on the cross atoned for the sin of the
world Conquering death and the grave The devil’s greatest weapon
death was nullified there Would you humble yourself before
him