We have heard it before: "Christians
are never to drink, they don’t smoke, never go to movies, don’t play cards, don’t
read secular novels, women don’t wear pants, and certainly not shorts, skirts and dresses must not be above the knee. They aren't to wear too much jewelry or make-up, men don’t wear any jewelry except a wedding band and a watch." The list goes on and on.
Now, as for pastors, they must always have a "proper hair cut", wear a jacket and tie, nothing too colorful or loud, wear black suits to funerals. He must drive a nice but conservative car. A convertible or a Jeep Wrangler, would not be appropriate for a "man of God."
Some of you might laugh at these, or even groan these concepts are out-of-date, because many of them seem absurd and ridiculous. But, if I were to list all the rules, expectations, and laws that are on the books in many churches today, chances are your laughter would soon end. Most of these religious regulations are not written down anywhere but we are expected to attempt to keep them, and expect others to do so also.Legalism is highly contagious. While it’s usually less conscious and systematized in our minds than it was among the Pharisees, in Jesus' day, legalism can spread like a California wild fire through an entire congregation. That’s why Jesus reserved some of His harshest criticism for the legalistic religious elite in Mark 7:6-8, "And in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men."
The fact is, legalism can take a vibrant spirit filled faith and make it dull rendering it lifeless. It can efface enthusiasm, eradicate joy, and stifle spirituality. Sadly, rather than finding freedom through Christ, many believers become bogged down, burdened by the church.
The religious narrow minded self-righteous, judgmental, condemning are destructive and divisive. Insisting that everyone live up to the standard they've adopted. With an attitude of "everyone needs to be like me." Needless to say, when we think of church this way, we miss the delight of diversity in the church.
Most of us fall into legalism without intending to do so. However, the worst part of all. legalism makes it impossible for people to see Jesus. There is nothing that pushes someone away faster than a congregation of mean spirited, scowling so called Christians, with their list of rules and regulations. Rather than showing grace and mercy as we ourselves have received, we inadvertently portray Jesus as a stern mother superior instead of the Savior.
Let me put it another way, legalism is a shadow. Jesus is substance. When we focus on rules and
regulations we are essentially saying Jesus’ work on the cross is not enough. We're not focusing on Jesus.
Listen carefully. Not only does all the fullness of God dwell in Christ, all believers are filled with the fullness of Christ. The tense of this verb in Greek indicates that this fullness is a permanent experience. One translation puts it this way: "And you are in Him, having been completely filled full with the present result that you are in a state of fullness." If you have put your faith in Christ for forgiveness of sins, then there is nothing lacking in your relationship with God. There’s not some special blessing or something extra you need to have.
God initiated circumcision in the Old Testament as part of His covenant with His people in order to set them apart and identify them as true followers. One of the problems at Colosse was that some legalists were demanding that Christians submit to circumcision and obey the Old Testament Law. These false teachers were a bit different than those Paul refuted in Galatians. In that context, they were insisting that circumcision was necessary for salvation. In the church at Colossae, the false teachers were suggesting that obedience to Old Testament regulations would help them become more spiritual.
Even though circumcision was a physical procedure, performed by the hands of man, it had some sacred significance. The trouble was that Old Covenant followers insisted on the physical act without emphasizing a change of heart. It had become a religious ritual, rather than a transformation.
That’s why Jeremiah 4:4 says "Circumcise yourselves to the Lord And remove the foreskins of your hearts, Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Or else My wrath will spread like fire And burn with no one to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds.”
Jeremiah states that believers were to circumcise their hearts. "And remove the foreskins of your hearts," because physical acts are never meant to be the substance of our faith. Instead, a spiritual change on the inside, accomplished only through the redemptive work of Christ, is what God demands.
When we put our faith in Christ, Jesus spiritually circumcises, or cuts away, our sinful nature in order to prove that we belong to Him. Since we are alive, and no longer dead in our sins, Paul next uses the illustration of baptism. The word baptize has both a literal and figurative meaning. The literal meaning is "to dip, or immerse." It literally means to be identified with.Beloved, it’s imperative to remember, that just as the physical act of circumcision did nothing to change someone’s heart, so too, the waters of baptism itself do not save anyone. When we place our faith in Christ and are born again, I Corinthians 12:13 states very clearly that we are “baptized,” or “identified” with Christ: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
Water baptism is a wonderful outer illustration of an inner reality. When we go under the water, we are symbolizing our burial with Christ, and when we come up, we symbolically become a picture of what it means to be raised with Christ. The Greek words used in verse 12 are very expressive. We are co-buried, co-raised, and co-made alive. We died with him, we are raised with him, and we have life because of him. Baptism vividly portrays the death and burial of the believer’s sinful nature and former way of life. When Christ died, our old nature died with Him. That’s our spiritual circumcision. When we come up out of the water in baptism, we symbolize that just as Christ was raised from the dead, so too, we will be raised to resurrection life.
Remembering that our old sinful nature is dead and buried with Christ gives us a powerful motive to resist sin. We can now keep sinful desires from controlling us by treating them as though they are dead. Romans 6:11-14 provides us with a practical plan to use in order to live with the freedom that Christ has promised us.
"So you too, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore sin is not to reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your body’s parts as instruments of righteousness for God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace."
Now, I know we already covered a good bit of this, however, I believe its important to remind all of you. our sins are canceled. Look now at the last part of verse 13 and verse 14. "having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."
Here we see that we’re not only complete and alive, but our sins have been canceled.
I want to draw your attention to something, Jesus forgave "all" of our sins. That means every single one, even those that you have a hard time forgiving yourself for. The certificate of debt is the Law. Jesus not only took our sins to the cross, He also took the Law and nailed it there, forever out of the way. The Law was against us and stood opposed to us because all it could ever do was point out our sinfulness. In Romans 7:7, Paul concludes that he "would not have known what sin was except through the law."
The Law, the written code, was like a handwritten ledger of our trespasses against the law. In biblical times, records were often kept on parchment, and the writing could be washed off. Paul is saying that our sins have been wiped away. All of God’s legal requirements have been met therefore, taken away once they were nailed to the cross. No regulations or man-made rituals have power over us.
Remember, in verse 15, the powers and authorities of this evil world stripped Christ of his clothing and popularity, made a public spectacle of him on the cross, and thought they had triumphed over him by putting Him to death. Little did they know that the victory actually belonged to Jesus. Friends, evil no longer has any power over you because Christ has stripped Satan’s weapons from him. He is disarmed. The only power he has is what we give him when we allow him to deceive us and create fear in our lives.
The cultural background to verse 15 is so rich, filled with meaning. When the Romans went off to fight their enemies, after winning the war, they would bind their conquered enemies together by the hands and march them single file back to Rome, where they would have a huge celebration. Thousands of Romans would line the streets to watch this public spectacle.
The soldiers who had acted heroically in battle, would follow behind the conquering General and the rest of the army would follow suit. And then at the rear of the procession would be all those who had been conquered. As they would march past the crowds, the people would jeer at them, cast insults, and even throw things. Let me assure you, you certainly didn’t want to be the main attraction at one of these public spectacles!
Jesus, however, has turned His captors into captives, displaying them in His victory celebration. The Colossians had participated in that victory, and so have we. We don’t have to follow false teachers and we don’t have to succumb to sin or fear Satan. Jesus is the victor and He has triumphed at the cross.
I Corinthians 15:54-57 says, "But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
We need to lose the legalism and the best way is to remember our legal position before God! We are complete, alive, forgiven, and we have the victory. We will cover some of this rather quickly, but we’ll see that we must also resist the lures of legalism. I love how he responds to this issue in Galatians 3:2-3, "This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"
Colossians 2:16-23 gives us three warnings so that we can avoid being foolish. We must be vigilant or we’ll end up leaning toward legalism on a daily basis.
Now, let's look at verses 16-17, "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."
Now, remember what I've said before, whenever you see the word "therefore" in the Scripture, you should always ask
what it’s there for. Here, Paul is drawing a conclusion based upon what he
has just written previously. Since Jesus has done what was required, what was necessary for
our salvation, don’t let other people evaluate your spiritual life by
their external standards.
In other words, refuse to judge by externals. It’s relatively easy to judge by externals. If there’s something you’re not supposed to eat and you avoid it, then everything’s kosher, no pun intended. If you attend when you’re supposed to attend, then you must be doing right. If you kneel when you pray, then you must be close to God. We must be vigilant to make sure we’re not evaluating what we’re doing, or what others are doing, according to external standards. Since Christ has now come, special diets and obligatory days are no longer necessary because every Old Testament feast looks forward to Christ. They were just shadows of the reality that is fulfilled in Jesus.
Hebrews 10:1 is apothegmatic, "For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the form of those things itself, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually every year, make those who approach perfect."
Verses 18 and 19 tell us "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 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 is saying they have a false humility. They present themselves as humble and holy but in reality they are filled with spiritual pride and superiority. They worship angels. Their focus is on other spiritual beings rather than on Christ. They have seen visions. They love to give people their idea of latest word from the Lord. They are puffed up with idle notions. Their inner secrets gave them big heads but not burning hearts.
Therefore, as a result, because of their subjective bias and experiential expressions, they had actually become disconnected from the head. They were severed from any hope of spiritual vitality because they were not getting their orders from Christ. We must make sure we are not seeking experiences that do not correlate with Christ, that do not line up with Scripture. Even though there is a fascination with religious mysticism, our focus must remain on Jesus.
We must refuse to judge by externals, we must reject false authority. We must also repudiate religious rules. Let's look at verses 20-23, "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 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."
The false teachers focused on personal denial as the way to curb their appetites. This sounds really good on the surface because we all agree that we need discipline in our lives. The problem is that they were teaching that these disciplines were necessary for fellowship with God. And that's just not truth!
Verse 23 very clearly states that regulations, although they may look and sound good, "are of no value against fleshly indulgence." Rules don’t abolish the appetite because they actually feed the flesh. Why is that? Because no matter how hard we work we can’t force sin out of our lives through devotion to man-made dictates. We need God’s power working within us. It’s His grace, not a regimen of rules and activities that affect real life change.
In Closing....
We must teach grace before commitment, because once grace is understood and embraced, it will lead to commitment. But, required commitment and rule keeping always leads to legalism. Rather than reflecting the love of Jesus Christ, we are mirroring the laws of man.
You can chase after revelations, out-of-body experiences, visions, healers, angels, saints already departed, and you will slowly strangle a real relationship with Jesus Christ.
When the Head is separated from the body... there is no longer life!
May it be so...
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen