Colossians: The Appearance of Wisdom

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Talk intro:

We’re continuing our journey through the book of Colossians today and as a reminder Paul is writing to a relatively new group of believers to help them understand 2 important truths. 1. He’s telling them who Jesus is and, 2. What difference He makes in their life.

So far Paul has been revealing a ‘formula’ of sorts that goes like this: The Godhead is completely in Christ and Christ is in us so we are complete in Christ.

He is trying to help them see that Jesus is above all things including their gods and religious systems and in the last three weeks we have looked at how He fulfills all of the demands of the law and specifically how everything merges together at the cross.

Today we’re going to look at some more of the specific concerns that Paul had for these new Christians and their new life in Christ

Turn with me to Colossians 2:20-23 and let’s read it…..

I’m going to start off again this week by saying a little about what this passage isn’t talking about. Paul is not saying that we no longer have to obey rules and regulations of any kind. It will not help you to show this verse if the sign on the buffet says you can only go through the line twice.

Paul is still referring to the Jewish food laws but he’s using them as an example of a much bigger issue. Following a certain set of rules will not make you spiritually complete.

The verse in this passage that gets the most debate is vs. 21. I have seen people use this verse to justify lots of things but it’s clear that Paul didn’t intend this verse as catch all to make excuse for improper eating and drinking. The context is very important here, and as a side note, context is important everywhere in Scripture.

In legal terms death releases you from the law. I mean that’s kind of a ‘duh’ moment but in vs. 20 Paul is using that to make his point. He says that since we are in Christ we have died to the basic principles of the world. In other words he is saying that we are under a new Lord and we live a new life which is ordered and established in Christ.
In vs. 23 it reveals the sneaky thing about these rules that gives them staying power, they seem like wise things to do. They have the appearance of wisdom, which literally means they sound like really good things, but they have no real value against our flesh that craves to be satisfied but is never filled.

The entire point is that the only way we can experience true freedom is when we die to our sinful flesh in Jesus. Because we are complete in Christ we can resist the cravings of our flesh and in time we develop new desires after God’s own heart.

In vs. 21 the English translation kind of softens the meaning a bit. But if you look at the Greek the words ‘touch’ ‘taste’ and ‘handle’ indicate a deepening level of involvement. I might touch something, then I taste it then I take it. Basically he’s saying that there’s no end to requirements that will come your way. In the law God said that the Sabbath was for rest but in time there were hundreds of rules created for Sabbath keeping. You could cook but you couldn’t collect firewood. You could pull your donkey or cow out of a pit but you couldn’t heal someone.

Being a Christian is about being complete in Christ and following His example. Paul is warning them that if they go down the path of self imposed religion it will reveal that they are really arrogant and in the end it will lead to an endless search for the next best thing to help you overcome the desires of their flesh.

What happens is that we caught up in searching for that next best thing and we take our eyes off of Jesus. That’s Paul’s real concern here. He didn’t want them, or us, to ever think there was something other than being complete in Christ that could free them from the flesh and sin.