my teaching Col 2 class

Class Col 2: 20-23

First, we’re gonna back up just a little so I can keep my section in context, as it belongs with Ralph’s passages from last week, so lets start by reading Col 2: 16-23, I’ll pray and we’ll get started.

2.16-17 – Paul warns the Colossae Church about trading our freedom in Christ for useless man-made legalistic rules. A historic Baptist example of this would be- the Bible teaches Drunkenness is a Sin, so don’t get drunk; however it would be my position and I think  the Bible’s position that you cannot install a rule over someone else that says they cannot drink (since drinking itself is not a sin) yet if you have a problem with alcohol yourself or if you are concerned about how drinking may reflect poorly against the Gospel you can restrict yourself from drinking.

I know alcohol can be a touchy subject does anyone want to chime in about that.

 If your interested you can read up on the Wesleyan Methodist Dentist Thomas Welch (founder of Welch’s grape juice) and inventor of grape juice pasteurization it was because of him that churches switched from wine to grape juice in Communion and that wasn’t until about 1860.

Read Verses on Food

2.16 –We are no longer required to submit to OT dietary restrictions, to which I say praise Jesus and yeah Bacon! We are no longer required to celebrate festivals, which were annual religious feasts like the feast of Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles (or Booths). We are no longer required to celebrate new moons, which were monthly sacrifices made on the first day of each new lunar cycle. Or Sabbaths, which were required weekly celebration of the 7^th day (or Saturday). What you need to pick up on each of these is that whatever was in question “X” is no longer required it doesn’t mean you can’t go with a friend to a festival it just means since your Saved by Grace remember you’re Salvation is not attached to the your required fulfillment of these old legalistic rules.

2.17 – Shadows vs. substance – since the OT shadows have found their substance in Christ the shadows are no longer needed. A perfect example of this would be OT animal sacrifices – these are done away with since the once and for all sacrifice of Christ has appeased God’s wrath, and atoned for sin in a way that dumb animals never could.

I have thought about writing up a class on OT Messianic prophesies fulfilled in Jesus that fleshes out this Shadow vs. Substance idea if anyone is interested in that.

Read Christ once and for all

2.18 – Disqualify you, Paul warns the Colossae Church don’t follow false teachers, beware irrational mysticism and asceticism as this delights itself in self-abasement which God sees as Pride which God hates and beware the worship of angels – a practice that began around the region of Colossae and continued for several hundred years.

Read We cannot worship angels

Visions – like most cults and false religions, false teachers often base their religion on teaching their own visions and revelations which they say they received from God or angels or whatever (like Joseph Smith the founder of Mormonism his whole religion is based off of an Angelic visitation he said he had).

The vision or “angelic” encounter is always verified against the clear revelation that Christ brought and doctrines He taught first hand to the Apostles who continue to teach us through the eyewitness testimony of the Gospels and then are expounded on in the Epistles.

Here’s just a quick Apologetics for the reliability of the Gospels: they are the only documented eyewitness testimony from those who actually knew Jesus, listened to His teaching and saw the miracles He performed. Its not like there’s a Gospel of George out there from the 1^st century where he says Oh, I knew Jesus we hanged out a lot, he was a nice guy but he wasn’t this miraculous Messiah the other Gospels make him out to be. First Matthew is the Apostle Matthew an eyewitness, 2^nd Mark was not an eyewitness, but he was a disciple under both Paul and more important the right-hand man to Peter which is where he got all his info from, 3^rd Luke chapter 1 states that he like a modern journalist interviewed the eyewitnesses and then chronicled their statements, 4^th John was also an Apostle and an eyewitness. So for those who say that the Gospel’s are fiction made to make Jesus look like a god then I say great where’s the 1^st century eyewitness testimony to the facts in question? Even the historic documents of the Jews and Romans would verify that Christ was at least some kind of bizarre miracle worker that they murdered, and whose followers said rose from the dead. Those that don’t trust in the creditability of the Gospels cannot because they are unregenerate.

2.19 – (parallels Col 1:18 & Eph 4:15-16) There is no spiritual growth for the body (that is the Church) apart from union with Christ (who is the head of the Church).

2.20 With Christ you died - refers to the believers union with Christ’s life, death and resurrection

2.21-23 And here is the focus for us today the Futility of asceticism – attempting to achieve holiness by rigorous self-neglect, self-denial, and even violent self-affliction. Asceticism cannot redeem past sins, cannot prevent us from committing current sins or draw us out of our sin and toward God (as only Christ is the mediator between God and men, not us and our rigorous self-righteousness). Ascetics often only put on a show of their own supposed holiness.

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So the last thing I want to do is leave you with this vague word “Asceticism” and not see how people and false religions are still lost in this even today.

So the rest of this meditation on Asceticism is based off a 2010 Christianity Today article.

You may remember Dan Brown’s bestselling book (or the movie with Tom Hanks) The DaVinci Code (I just watched it again this week) in which a deranged albino monk flogs himself and wears a cilice (sill-ese). If you don’t’ have a Catholic background you may be asking, what is a cilice? It’s a strap secured around the thigh with either buckles or thongs that inflicts pain via inward pointing spikes. The tighter you wore it the deeper the spikes would penetrate your flesh. This stock photo I found basically looks like a small section of barbed wire fencing and a leather strap. If you’re like me, this may make you wonder what was Dan Brown’s inspiration for his masochistic monk.

stock photo of a cilise

Creepy right? Well it may surprise you that Mother Theresa also wore a cilice. And according to Monsignor Oder, the man who is presenting John Paul II’s case for Sainthood says that the Pope both in the Vatican and when he was back in Poland would frequently whip himself with a special trousers belt that he kept among his other Vestments in his wardrobe and he would mess up his bedding at night but then sleep on the cold, bare floor. One of the Polish nuns, Sister Sobodka, who worked for him both in the Vatican and at his Papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo in Southern Rome said that from the next room you could hear him whipping himself and the cries of pain.

Oder explains that they believed these self-abasing acts helped them seek moral perfection in this life. And here is where this relates to us in this class, the Pope himself would appeal to Colossians 1:24 where the Apostle says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,” that passage is not only taken out of context but it isn’t even the complete sentence.

The suffering Paul endured for the sake of the Gospel in his Apostolic ministry did unite him to both other suffering Christians and Christ Himself, who suffered untold anguish on the Cross. Yet for all the hardships Paul bore, he never intentionally harmed himself in the pursuit of this union. According to a Sovereign God, suffering found Paul, and he even pleaded unsuccessfully with God to relent his sufferings (2 Corinthians 12: 7-10) yet God allowed this suffering in order that He might demonstrate His power through Paul’s weakness.

So why are these Heroes of the Roman Catholic religion harming themselves? Well in a 2002 sermon John Paul II preached about being conformed to the Cross of Christ by (this is a quote) “collaborating in Christ’s Redemption through pain.” Not only is it blasphemy to pretend that you (a sinner) can assist Christ in His work of Redemption but it also rejects clear teachings of Scripture like Heb 10 that we read which says, “And by that (Christ’s perfect obedience and sacrifice) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.” There is no room in Christianity for you to lend God a hand in Salvation.

Now I’m not telling you this to say look how ugly the Roman Church is, I’m saying it because these people are hurting themselves to look pious and help God save them. That’s perverse. But what they really need is to hear is the Gospel, the external announcement that all the work needed to accomplish Salvation was done by Christ for them not by them. Mother Theresa needed to hear Isaiah 53 that Christ was pierced for her transgressions, he was bruised for her iniquities, it was his suffering that heals us, not our own. And John Paul needed to be told that Christ was whipped for him, that Jesus already took that flogging and pain and suffering and that the NT says we are not saved by these pious works done by us in righteousness but by His Mercy and His Grace won for us by His suffering and completed work on the Cross. To reject the sufficiency of Christ’s external work done for you and your salvation and instead to trust in some attempt to work alongside Christ (in tandem) to Co-Redeem or Co-Save yourself is an outright rejection of the Christian Gospel.

We’ll wrap up with this, lets listen to just a couple Gospel excepts from the NT:

Read Gospel passages

Application - That was John 1, Romans 9, Eph 2 and Titus 3. Its not by our works that we are saved its by the completed work done by Christ. We must insist on that despite trials, temptations or even persecution within American churches, just as the Apostles did back in the Early Church.