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Let no man beguile you of your reward: the original compound word, peculiar in the New Testament to Paul, and that in this Epistle only, (and not very frequent in other authors), hath occasioned interpreters here to render it variously, some joining the next following word with it, and some (as we read it) to that which follows after. The simple word is, Col_3:15, read rule, or judge, and it may be rendered intercede. Yet Paul doth not elsewhere use this word simply or in composition where he speaks of judging and condemning, Rom_2:1; however, it is borrowed from those who were judges or umpires in their games, the apostle most likely alluding to those, who through favour or hatred determined unjustly, to the defrauding those victors of their prize or reward to whom it was due. Hence some would have the import to be agreeable to our translation; Be careful these unjust arbiters do not defraud you of gaining Christ, and deceive you, ,{ as Mat_24:4 Eph_5:6 2Th_2:3} by prescribing false lists and giving you wrong measures, and so judging against you. One renders it: Let no man deceive you with subtle argument, who pleaseth or delights himself in humility; another: Let no man take your prize; others: Let no man master it or bear rule over you at pleasure; let none take upon himself, or usurp to himself, the parts or office of a governor or umpire over you. The apostle labours to fortify the true followers of Christ against such superstitious subtle ones, who by their artifice did assume a magisterial authority (without any sure warrant from God) to impose their traditionary and invented services upon them, and determine of their state, accordingly as the papists do at this day. One learned man thinks the apostle had not used this word here, but for some notable advantage, viz. because the simple word may signify to intercede as well as to judge; it made wonderfully to his purpose in this composition, (as he uses concision, Phi_3:2), to disparage those seducers who did, from some notions of the Platonists, labour to gain credit to that opinion that the angels were intercessors between God and man.
In a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels; covering their imperious spirit by being volunteers in humility, or by a pretence of voluntary, uncommanded humility, alleging it would be presumption in them to address themselves immediately to God, and therefore they would pay a religious homage to angels, as of a middle nature between God and them, presuming they would mediate for them: an instance to express all that invented worship, which, how specious soever it may seem to be, hath no warrant from Christ, who alone can procure acceptance of our persons and services. He expects that his disciples should assert his rights, and the liberty with which he hath made them free, against the traditions of self-willed men, and no more to solemnize for worship, than teach for doctrines, the traditions of men, Mat_15:2,6,9. We must not, under any pretext of humility, presume to know what belongs to our duty and God’s service better than Christ doth, showing us that he alone is the true and living way, and we may come boldly by him, Mat_11:28 Joh_14:1,6 Eph 3:12 Heb_4:16 Heb_10:19,20. And therefore the adoring and invocating of angels as heavenly courtiers, whatever the papists out of a show of humility do argue, is not after Christ, but against him.
Intruding into those things which he hath not seen: yea, and for any one to assert it, and the like, is to be a bold intruder upon another’s possession, a thrusting a man’s self into the knowledge and determination of that which is above his reach, Psa_131:1, and he hath no ground at all for, but doth pry or wade into a secret which a man cannot know. The apostle useth a Platonic word against those who did indulge themselves out of curiosity in the opinions of the Platonists about angels, the worshippers of which, amongst those who were professed Christians in Phrygia, were so tenacious of their error that they were not rooted out after the third century, when a canon was made against them under the name of Angelici, in the council of Laodicea near Colosse.
Vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind; the first rise of such foolish presumption, was a being rashly puffed up with the sense of their flesh, a deluded mind moved by some carnal principle, setting out things with swelling words of vanity, wherewith in truth they have no acquaintance, and whereof they have no experience, 1Ti_1:7.