13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
16Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Dig Deeper
The other day I was watching a movie that was based on the true story of Western Kentucky University, the first college basketball team made up of black players to win the NCAA championship. During the semi-final game, Western Kentucky was playing the University of Kansas. Kansas’ star player, JoJo White had the ball with just seconds left on the clock and his team trailing by one point. From the deep corner, White stepped back from the defender, pulled up and launched a long shot. The shot soared towards the basket and then whipped through the net perfectly to win the game. The Kansas players were jumping up and down and their fans began to storm onto the floor in celebration. Just then, everyone realized that the side referee was running towards the spot where White had shot the ball. He was blowing his whistle, which could barely be heard above the crowd, and pointing to the floor. White had stepped out of bounds which nullified his shot. Kansas had actually lost the game and Western Kentucky would move onto the national championship. The very play that Kansas thought had brought them victory, had actually sealed their loss.
Paul has been trying to demonstrate to the Colossians the incredible victory that Jesus Christ had won for them and then made available in his life. They have the victory; it has already been secured and now they just need to learn to realize that victory in the life of their community. In describing that they have victory, Paul will recount how Christ won the victory. Not only did it happen on the cross, it happened at the exact moment that the evil forces that those who rule over the world thought they won. They were celebrating their humiliating victory over the Messiah, only to find out that what they thought was victory had actually sealed their defeat.
Before entering into the life of Christ, they were dead in their sins and in the uncircumcision of their flesh (sinful nature is a misleading translation that demonstrates a Calvinistic bias of the interpreter’s, leading to the impression that sin is part of our nature that cannot be changed or denied and is part of the so-called total depravity of man). Paul’s point is that they were made alive with Christ when they died to themselves. The irony of that is that the life that so many want to cling to leads to nothing but death. Because all men have sinned, all men who remain in their own lives are headed for certain physical and spiritual death. Any life other than the life of Christ leads to death. Once we enter into the life of Christ, all of the sins committed in the flesh have been forgiven.
In the ancient world, symbols were every bit, if not more, powerful than they are today. After gaining a great military victory, one thing that Romans, in particular, liked to do was to display the conquered king at the end of a long parade. It was humiliating to the king and conquered people and sent a powerful symbolic message of their victory to anyone else who cared to watch. Often they took the conquered king to Rome to do all of this. Jesus wasn’t important enough in the minds of the Romans to take him to Rome, but they still put a sign above his cross marking him out as king of the Jews and crucified him as such to send a strong message to anyone looking on. The authorities and powers of Rome had stripped Jesus of his armor and clothing, made a public spectacle of him, and demonstrated their might in their triumph over Jesus and anyone else who would challenge the power of Rome and the evil forces that stood behind the power of Rome.
Right at this point, stop and read verse 15 again three or four times. Let it sink in for a moment. Right at the very moment and in the very act in which the powers of the world thought they were defeating and humiliating Jesus, they had lost. God had stripped the armor from the powers and authorities. He was, in fact, making a public spectacle of them. The cross was not a stunning defeat for the God of the universe, it was the very moment of His incredible and earth-shattering triumph.
With that victory in hand, those in Christ need to stand in defiant opposition to any powers or authorities that might try to take over the life of the Christian. They were defeated and shamed at the cross along with all other rulers and powers that would stand opposed to God. This included the Jewish law (written code) that kept the Gentiles alienated from God’s people and condemned the Jews for violating its commands. All of that was nailed to the cross, never to be able to condemn God’s people. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:1, "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
This means that Christians never have to be enslaved by any particular form or system of religious piety and regulation. The Colossians could breathe a sigh of relief because no one had the right to restrict them by telling them that they had to eat or drink certain things, or could not eat and drink certain things. They did not have to order their lives by strict festivals and calendars. None of that mattered anymore because Christ had gained the victory over those things. Those things served a function in the Old Testament but they were but shadows. There are still religious groups to this day that feel the need to tie people to certain calendars, food regulations, Sabbath days, etc. To follow these things is not a sin, but to demand that others follow them in order to be in right standing before God is to stand in direct opposition to Christ. These laws and festivals were given to man to teach us that we needed something outside of ourselves in order to be God’s people, but they were also intended to show that they were not that thing. They could not accomplish what they pointed to. They were but a shadow; Christ is the reality.
Paul mentions some of the specific heresies that were being floated around in Colosse, which had to do with the exaltation of angels (which may be a different way of referring to the powers and authorities that Paul mentions several times), or elaborate religious demands that present an air of false humility before God. Nor is it necessary to have the kind of visions and secret knowledge that was so valued in the mystery religions of Paul’s days. No matter how religious some of these things may seem or make us feel, all they really do is send the very clear message that we don’t think the reality of the life of Christ is enough to give us access to God. This does not, of course, mean that we can’t ever participate in special religious services or have special prayer times that help enhance our awareness of God or make us feel closer to him, rather Paul is talking about institutionalizing those things and requiring them for the Christian community.
The real problem with the false teachers in Colosse, or any other place or time, is that they had lost connection with the Head, who is Christ. Note, though, that Paul says that they have lost connection with the Head, but also with the body, which is held together by its ligaments and sinews. The person who cuts themselves off from Christ, the head of the body, also cuts themselves off from the body itself. Yet, the opposite is also true. The person who cuts themselves off from the body, separates themselves from the head. You cannot have the head without the body or the body without the head. When someone is cut off from the head, as these teachers were, they will not grow, because the growth that is caused by God, comes from remaining connected to the body and head of Christ.
Devotional Thought
Have you ever felt that you could have your own relationship with God and Christ, without having a relationship with His body? Why has Paul made it so clear that being connected with the head means being connected with the body? How does this challenge the normal religious thinking of our day?
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