Legalism and Liberty Pt3

We are in the midst of a very
fascinating section here in Colossians chapter two. And so if you would
please go ahead and begin turning back there. Colossians chapter
two. We are studying Paul’s fifth
in of five examination points that are provided here in the
bulk of chapter two. We are inspecting the fruit of
the gospel, our own individual professions of faith, by means
of these five examination standards, and we’re doing so to make sure
that our faith is legitimate, real, and these This particular
examination is a collective and concerted effort. It’s pastors,
it’s fellow believers, and it’s even our own hearts going before
the Lord in the course of examination. Because false fruit affects not
only the individual, of course, but it also affects other believers
and even the greater church. Fruit must be inspected. And so, beginning with the discernment
that must be exercised, we began in this section of Chapter two,
the discernment that must be exercised, the steadfastness
that must be maintained, the spiritual caution to be observed,
the regeneration to be enjoyed, to restore confidence in God’s
work in our lives. And to add to those four, this
fifth point, which we’ve been considering, the liberty to be
guarded. As believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ, we must guard our liberty in Christ. Here in this passage,
verses 15 through 23, Paul is warning against the error of
legalism. It’s a destructive adherence
to extra-biblical rules or rituals or observances. And we were reminded
that there is an almost inborn inclination in the human heart
to do something to earn our salvation or to enhance our spiritual standing. When such man-made religious
requirements are adopted and implemented with the goal of
improving our spiritual standing, our confidence in faith in Christ
is necessarily diminished. It destroys the faith of the
Bible, the faith in the gospel, the great hope of justification
by faith. As soon as someone tells you
that some observance, some ritual is required for your salvation,
run. Don’t walk to your Bible. And if it isn’t there, then you
can identify that categorically as a legalistic demand. It is
another gospel, as Paul calls it in Galatians 1. As soon as
a person begins to adopt such practice, they begin to push
others to adopt that practice as well. And the cancerous corruption
is already in the church. Such a mindset is to be expected
in the religions of the world, but not Christianity. All other
religions put some other works-based righteousness into the formula,
rites, rituals, and things that must be done in order to gain
favor with their respective deities. Only Christianity presents salvation
as being by faith alone in Christ alone. It’s nothing that we do. But even Christianity is not
impervious to legalistic attacks because our natural tendency
to earn or to participate in or to add to or to pay back,
to contribute to our salvation, the temptation to legalism is
ever present, even among Christians. No wonder Paul was on alert.
He knew of the human tendency to works righteousness, and even
a little out-of-the-way church in the mountain town of Colossae
was not safe. They too were the target of legalistic
false teachers, and there must have been several different strains
of legalism being pushed there in Colossae. There were Judaizers
pressing for rights and observances of the Jewish law. That was likely. But there were other influences
as well, pushing all their scrupulous and unbiblical perspectives on
these new believers. And so we find Paul contending
for the faith, even the faith of the members of this little
church. We return again and I want to
take the passage in full so that we can have the context. We’ll
start in verse 15 and we’ll course down to verse 23, chapter 2,
verse 15 through 23. 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 the angels, taking his stand on visions that
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 the 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. We’re in the midst of this point,
about halfway. Paul transitions quickly in his
thoughts in verse 13 and 14 to his very bold statement in verse
15, that Christ has vanquished all authority. And that leads
directly to his argument that as Christians, we should not
be subjecting ourselves to any other spiritual authority. After
all, he has disarmed the spiritual rulers, the devil, and his armies
of demons. He triumphed over them, and ultimately
he made a public display of them. Paul likens Christ’s victorious
parade to that of an earthly army returning from battle, leading
their vanquished foes in a humiliating display. Paul then, as we saw
last week, applies the truth of Christ’s victory over his
enemies to the Christian’s life. Again, if Christ has conquered
over his spiritual enemies, and if he is our Lord, we have no
reason to submit to any other authority. Paul speaks in terms
of a battle, and the Christian’s heart is the battlefield. The
Christian will either be won over by some legalistic observance
or will have their faith strengthened in the midst of this battle.
And so there in verses 15 and 16, Paul issued an assertion
of freedom. Let no one act as your judge. the threats to freedom, all those
varied examples of potential areas of legalism, food and drink,
observations of special days, and then finally, the foundation
of freedom, the reality that is Christ, of which such rights
and observances are mere shadows. Well, that brings us to Paul’s
exposure of these legalists. The previous verses hinted at
the identity of such individuals, but here in verses 18 and 19,
Paul all but names them. He gives a much clearer picture
to the identity of these troublemakers. Go back, if you would, to verse
18. I want to look this morning at
the evil of legalism. And the first portion of that,
I want to specifically look at the crime of spiritual injustice. The crime of spiritual injustice. Look at the first sentence of
verse 18. Let no one keep defrauding you
of your prize. We begin here with a strong statement
from Paul. It’s a command. Let no one keep
defrauding you of your prize. And I have to tell you that those
nine words in the New American translate a mere three words
in the Greek. The ESV uses only five words. But in the Greek, the words no
one and you, as found in both translations, are indeed there
in the Greek text. It’s the verb that generates
all these additional words, especially in the New American. The ESV
says simply, let no one disqualify you. Two words to translate the
verb. The New American takes six words. Let keep defrauding you of your
prize. And even though it is indeed
wordy, I find it to be a more thorough, more accurate translation
of the original. Let me explain. Paul begins here
with a command. The verb is an imperative. Paul
is still speaking of the legalists in the midst, the would-be judges
of our spiritual practices. as mentioned in verse 16, but
Paul moves from a general characterization there to a very specific identification
of their practices here in verse 18. He identifies them as judges
there in verse 16, but here they are bad, rogue, and even devious
judges. The word that Paul chooses to
describe them here is extremely uncommon. This is the only place
that the word is used in the New Testament, but it’s also
very rarely used in external Greek literature. It’s a compound
word, a verb, comprised of two words, a preposition and a verb. The noun form of this verb, brabeus,
refers to a judge, but really more an umpire, an arbitrator. Brabion refers to the victory
prize that would have been won when a judge made a decision
in a contest or a game. And so the verb kata brabeo The form just captures what an
umpire does in a contest, what a judge does in the course of
his decision. He declares a winner and he awards
a prize. But the additional word here,
the preposition appended to the front of that verb, kata, it
adds an unsavory aspect to the meaning of this word, to condemn,
to judge against a person or a thing. And so it comes to mean
to render an unjust, unfair decision. It presents a crooked judge,
unfairly and unjustly declaring the wrong winner of a contest. In other words, this judge injects
his will into the decision. In the contest itself, it wasn’t
even close. There was a clear winner and
an equally clear loser. But when the umpire opens his
mouth to speak, he declares a shocking decision. The clear and obvious
winner is cheated. The victory prize was rightfully
his. He won it fair and square. This
corrupt judge has stolen the prize from the rightful champion
and it is intentional. He didn’t just make a mistake.
There is ill intent in the decision rendered. This decision was designed
more than anything to insult and dishearten the objectively
clear winner. He knew well that he was throwing
the match. He knew well that he was assigning
the prize to the wrong contestant. Well, that’s the general idea.
But there are a few details to mention here. If this person,
this umpire, is one who judges a contest and declares a winner
and awards a prize, what, we have to ask, is the prize? Because
the implication here is that these false teachers, these legalists
were coming in, pressing their adherence to their particular
rituals and observances. And if the people did not comply, they were attempting to render
an unjust decision in order to rob those people of their prize.
What was the prize? It would be very easy to press
this metaphor too far, but we need look no further than what
the believer comes to possess by his or her faith in Christ. That is what is being challenged
by this legalism. That’s what’s being robbed. What
is the Christian’s prize? Peace. Peace with God. Hope. A hope in eternal life. Righteousness. Righteousness which is declared,
bestowed upon him or her. Paul writing in Philippians 3.14
speaks of the prize as the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The prize for a Christian is
salvation and all of its blessings. But if the legalistic false teacher
can get us to put even a tiny bit of confidence in some ritual,
some external observance, some religious practice, then he has
already begun to rob us of that prize. You see, the explanation
of that unjust judge that I provided a moment ago pictured the judge
as withholding the prize that is rightfully ours. But it’s worse than that. The
prize is already ours. The medal is already around our
neck. The champion’s wreath is already
sitting upon our head. And the evil judge is looking
to steal what is already rightfully ours as believers in Christ.
When we give in to the demands of the legalist, we relinquish
that invaluable prize that we’ve already won by our faith in Christ. Listen to how strongly Paul articulated
this in the letter to the Galatians. In fact, would you just take
a minute and turn? You want to go three books to your left.
Past Philippians, past Ephesians to Galatians chapter one. And
keep in mind, there were legalists there in Galatia too. There were
everywhere. And all that they wanted Christians
to do, simple little request, was to submit to the right of
circumcision. To begin to make that a requirement
for anyone to be a Christian. To add that to their Christianity. All they would have to do is
add that in and they would be complete. Listen to what Paul
thinks of that idea. If you’re in Galatians chapter
1, just zip down to verse 6. I am amazed, astounded, that you are so quickly
deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a
different gospel. which is really not another,
only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel
of Christ. If you would bear with me, turn
over to chapter two and to verse 16. Paul ramps it up here. He says,
nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus. That’s it. That
is the dividing line between the legalists and the Christian.
Even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified
by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by
the works of the law, no flesh will be justified. One more,
if you would turn over to chapter three, and you begin to really
grasp Paul’s irritation here with these legalistic false teachers,
but also with those who are falling for them. Look at verse three
of that chapter. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are
you now being perfected by the flesh? If they were going to
add something in by the flesh, They were going to try to add
to what the Holy Spirit had already begun in their lives. Paul’s
concern there with the Galatians is the same as his concern here
with Colossians. Would you go ahead and turn back
to Colossians? His concern is that to yield
to the legalistic demands of a false teacher is to desert
Christ for a different gospel. Because instead of being already
justified by faith, such a person is seeking now to add to, to
be justified by the works of the law in any of its forms.
What Paul is saying in so many words is that the prize, a person’s
confidence in justification by faith in Christ, isn’t good enough. So the question might come, how
do legalistic judges do what they do? What are their points
of attack? And this Paul talks about in
the remainder of verse 18. And so we see in the course of
our consideration of the evil of legalism, not only the crime
of spiritual injustice, but the means of spiritual injustice. Here’s how they do what they
do. Look at verse 18. Let no one keep defrauding you
of your prize. How? By delighting in self-abasement
and the worship of the angels, taking a stand on visions he
has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. Now, in
keeping with Paul’s metaphor, that of an unjust umpire or judge
who throws a decision We might think of these four phrases as
four different events. You go to a track meet, and they’ll
have like 22 different events. Here, Paul is just going to speak
of four examples. And again, this list is not exhaustive. It’s just four different ways
in which a legalist might seek to overwhelm a believer. It’s
that little word, by. that informs us that these are
the means of spiritual injustice. Let’s briefly consider each of
them. The first one that Paul mentions here is that of delighting
in self-abasement. We talked about this last week.
There were those legalists among the Colossians, and they were
setting themselves up as judges with regard to food and drink.
Remember? They were engaging in these extreme
forms of fasting, and that fasting as a practice is not wrong in
itself. Fasting is indeed a spiritual
discipline, but these troublemakers were over scrupulous in how or
how often fasting should be done. And that part of it was not commanded
by God. It was a man-made requirement
added to that practice. And instead of keeping their
spiritual practice between them and God, they were pressing others
to observe their form of spirituality. And they not only judged others,
but they bullied them as well. They did so by this false display
of humility. The exhibition of theirs had
all the appearance of humility, but it was a false humility.
It was really pride in disguise intended to manipulate others. The original suggests that they
would take pleasure in this so-called humility. delighting in self-abasement
as our translation has it. Remember Jesus addressed this
very thing. These were the kind of people
who would put on a gloomy face in the course of their fasting
in order to draw attention to themselves. The second way. that a legalistic
judge might try to influence the Christian is by his worship
of the angels. This indefensible practice may
well have been connected to this display of humility. There was
a prevalent mindset that some did not feel worthy to worship
God to worship God himself, and so in their false humility, they
worship the angels instead. You hear the argument? That explanation
is not inconceivable, since even Roman Catholics offer up prayer
to angels and departed saints. But the worship and prayers to
angels is totally indefensible. Paul declared in 1 Timothy 2.5
that there is one God and one mediator also between God and
men, the man, Christ Jesus. We don’t need any other mediator. The third means of spiritual
injustice here is what Paul describes here as taking his stand on visions
he has seen. In addition to their other habits
and practices, they also boasted of these fantastic dreams and
visions. These were totally subjective,
spiritual happenings, mystical experiences. And because they
were subjective, who could argue with them? And they were all
designed to put pressure on those who hadn’t had such experiences,
that maybe they weren’t quite spiritual enough. Does that sound
familiar? The individual himself couldn’t
prove these things, but neither could anyone disprove them. I remember a long, long time
ago, I was a relatively new Christian, and I had this charismatic roommate.
And by charismatic, I’m not speaking in the sense that he had a charming
personality. He was very much into the spiritual
gifts, and it didn’t take long before I began to notice something.
When something good or really great happened in his life, he
was driving down the street, and the Holy Spirit suddenly
told him, go into such and such a store. And he walked in, and
lo and behold, they were having a sale. And look at how the Lord
has blessed me. He would just say that the Holy
Spirit had told him to do thus and such, and who could argue
with that? But it was always a win. It was
always a great experience. Well, this went on for some time,
and one day I finally decided to draw the line. I said, from
now on, I’d like you to tell me what the Holy Spirit is telling
you before you reap this blessing. And then let’s see how things
unfold.” Well, he was unwilling to do
that. He was taking his stand on these
subjective experiences, just like what was going on in Colossae. That’s what the legalists were
doing, boasting in visions with which no one could contend. And
their insistence upon the validity of these dreams was intimidating
to those around them. Such an individual with such
grand spiritual experiences must have a superior faith, or does
he? The final tool in the legalist’s
bag of tricks, a characterization of the legalistic troublemaker,
is that he is inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. Paul
here uses an almost humorous word, fusiao. And I say almost humorous because
it refers to someone who is puffed up. In other words, arrogant. He uses this word most often,
does Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians, which means
that there was a real problem with spiritual pride among the
Corinthians. But Paul uses the word here with
reference to these legalistic false teachers. They were puffed
up, inflated, as our translations have it, arrogantly asserting
themselves and their viewpoints. And here again, their spiritual
pride is on full display to all around them. Such a person is
self-inflated, and he’s too full of himself and his opinions to
receive any kind of instruction. He’s beyond all of that. But
Paul adds that they do this without cause. They have no justifiable
reason to make such boastful statements, to operate the way
they do. Objectively speaking, they have
no grounds. It’s only in their deluded and
fleshly mind, a mind set on earthly and physical things, not spiritual
and heavenly things. Well, those are the means of
spiritual injustice. And a natural question inevitably
arises, why do such people stoop to these tactics? Why do they
press their legalistic perspectives? And Paul provides the answer
to that in verse 19. We’re looking at the evil of
legalism, not only the crime of spiritual injustice and the
means of spiritual injustice, but the root of spiritual injustice. Where does it come from? Why
do they do this? We’ll take it in its entirety.
Let no one keep defrauding of your prize by delighting in self-abasement
and the worship of angels, taking a 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. Paul cites one simple reason
that these spiritual menaces do what they do. They have separated
themselves from the head of the body, as if the physical body
could suddenly decide to go separate ways from its head. even on the
face of it. This is a shocking image and
it’s intended to be so. Because the consequences of doing
so are so severe. In the physical realm, to separate
the head from the body brings about instant death. But so also
in the spiritual realm. Paul frequently uses this metaphor
of the body as representative of Christ’s church, and he does
so in this very epistle. We’ve seen this, Colossians 124.
Paul mentions his body, which is the church. He does so as
well in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 16, speaking of the Lord’s table.
When we participate in the Lord’s table, we are sharing in the
body of Christ. He uses the same illustration
extensively again in chapter 12 of that epistle using the
word body. He uses it nearly 20 times in
1 Corinthians 12 to speak of Christ’s body, the church. And he employs the same image
over and over again in his letter to the Ephesians. It’s very clear
here whom Paul refers to as the head. of that body. It’s Jesus
Christ. Earlier in this particular epistle,
Paul used the same illustration, Colossians 1 18. Just listen. Speaking of God’s son, he says
that he is also head of the body, the church. Listen to this. Ephesians 1, 22 and 23, Paul
says, he put all things in subjection under his, that is Christ’s feet,
and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is
his body. Likewise, in 5, 23 of Ephesians,
the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is also the head
of the church. So Christ is the head of the
body, the church. Christ is her Redeemer. Christ
is her Lord. Christ is her Savior. Christ
is her authority. Christ is her leader. Christ
is her provider. In that parallel letter of Ephesians,
this verse is uttered there nearly verbatim. Would God’s people
please turn back this time to books, just to Ephesians and
to chapter four, Ephesians chapter four. And once you get there,
would you just scroll down to verse 14? Ephesians chapter four,
verse 14, almost an exact parallel to what Paul is saying here. He uses this simple metaphor
of the body as representing his people, the church, whom he is
the head. Jesus Christ is the head of the
church, and he says effectively, we are not to remain babies,
we are to grow up. Would you pick up, let’s do beginning
in verse 14. As a result, we are no longer
to be children tossed here and there by waves carried about
by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness
and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even
Christ. from whom the whole body, being
fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according
to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth
of the body for the building up of itself in love. Paul here
makes it explicitly clear in Ephesians 4 that the head is
no other than Jesus Christ. Him who is the head, even Christ. But while I have you here, I
want to show you another remarkable thing about this section of scripture.
There are three other phrases or words in that passage, 415
through 16, that are exactly as Paul has them in Colossians
2.19. There is the phrase, from whom
the entire body, used exactly the same way. There is the phrase,
held together by that which every joint supplies. And then finally,
it causes the growth. We’ll touch on each of those
momentarily. Let’s go back to the key component
of Paul’s illustration, the head. In addition to this verse, Christ
is also declared to be the head of the church in Ephesians 1.22. He gave him his head over all
things to the church. Likewise, in 5.23, the husband
is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. The
idea of Christ being the head of the body is one of Paul’s
favorite illustrations for his relationship to the church. Now,
if you would, go back to Colossians 2. Because I don’t want to forget
the additional detail of that sentence there in verse 19. Specifically,
glance down there, where he says that the body is being supplied
and held together by the joints and ligaments. the intricate
portions of our anatomy. Paul says it slightly differently,
as we just heard in Ephesians 4. There he says that the body
is held together by that which every joint supplies. Either
way, the illustration is easily understood. In order for the
physical body to grow, to be supplied, the body must remain
intact, held together. And so it’s with Christ’s spiritual
body the same way. Spiritual nourishment is supplied
through the entire body from part to part. And his point here
in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 2 is that Christ’s church functions
because it is a composite of individual members. Look at yet
another detail in this verse. It’s not so much that joints
and ligaments actually supply the body, but in holding the
body together, these enable the limbs and the extremities to
receive their sustenance. This is such a beautiful metaphor
of the church. We, and I mean every believer,
needs every other believer. There are no insignificant, unimportant,
dispensable members in Christ’s body. Each individual part contributes
to the growth of the body. Paul’s grave concern with these
troublemakers, again, is that they had effectively separated
themselves from the Savior. As Paul says it here, that what
brought about their errant thinking and behavior is that they were
not holding fast to the head. They may have professed faith
in Christ at some point, and perhaps they still did, but they
had added something to faith alone in Christ alone. They’d
come to believe that faith alone in Christ alone wasn’t enough,
and in doing so, they had begun to abandon their biblical faith. They had let go of the simple
gospel. As we turn our consideration
to the additional thoughts of this verse, we need to keep in
mind Paul’s purpose here. I don’t want to lose you. Remember,
he’s telling us why legalists do what they do. What is the
root cause of this spiritual injustice? And the bottom line
answer is that they do not hold fast to the head. And that’s
like spiritual suicide. Because as Paul points out, the
connection between the head and the body is what gives the body
life and vitality. Paul says that the head, from
whom the entire body, from the throat down to the heart, to
the fingers and toes, The entire body grows with the
growth which is from God. Only by the body’s vital union
with Christ, her head, can she grow. The most important connection
of all is the connection of the head and the body. That connection
is what enables life and growth. And so it is spiritually. Unless
we hold fast to Christ and Christ alone, we allow other things
to begin to seep in and crowd Christ out. Only as we hold fast
to Christ our head, our spiritual vitality is maintained. As soon as we allow other things
to crowd in, our spiritual vitality is cut off and destroyed. That
idea of holding fast, I remember as a little kid, I watched this
story on the TV. I remember it was in black and
white, and the contest was for a free car. Intriguing. And all the contestants had to
do to win this free car was to keep their hand on the car longer
than any other contestant. Thinking about that, it made
me wonder, what would the prize have to be for you, for me, to
refuse to let go. Is it a new car? Is it a million
dollars? Is it a bag full of diamonds? When Paul says, hold fast here,
he’s speaking of a determined grasp. And he’s thinking by the
way of salvation in Christ that we already possess by faith. How firmly do we hold fast to
that truth? Or are we always looking to loosen
our grip and to reach for something else? What if? some new practice or ritual catches
our attention or is pushed upon us as necessary for our Christianity. As soon as we begin to wonder
and doubt and entertain some addition to our salvation, we
begin to loosen our hold upon the Savior. If we open our minds
to the idea that something can and therefore must be added,
we are already engaged in the process of devaluing Christ’s
atonement. As soon as we begin to insert
asceticism or a fixation upon angels or a preoccupation with
dreams and visions or voices, it is because Christ is not enough.
and we should soon find ourselves cut off from the life-giving
supply. How can the church expect to
grow if we loosen our grip upon Christ and go looking for something
else to add to our spiritual standing? Would you examine your
hearts before him in prayer?