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 7th 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 1st 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, 2nd 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, 3rd Luke chapter 1 states that he like a
modern journalist interviewed the eyewitnesses and then chronicled their
statements, 4th 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 1st 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.
@@@
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.
