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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Colossians 2:20 - 3:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Col_2:20 to Col_3:4
20If 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, 21"Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!" 22(which all refer to things destined to perish with using)- in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23These 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. Col_3:1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Col_2:20 "if" This is a first class conditional sentence which was assumed to be true from the author's perspective or for his literary purposes. Believers are united with Christ and should be separated from the powers and structures of this fallen world system.
▣ "you have died" This is an aorist active indicative. This death is symbolized in baptism (cf. Col_2:12; Rom_6:4), and is an image of the believer's death to the old life and the resurrection to the new life of God-eternal life. Baptism, like circumcision, is an outward sign of an inner spiritual reality (cf. Col_2:11; Col_2:13).
Daily death to personal ambition and personal preferences is a mandate of effective ministry (cf. Rom_6:7; 2Co_5:14-15; 1Jn_3:16). However, this is not a legalism of rules, but a freedom from the tyranny of the fallen self! Daily spiritual death to self brings true life!
▣ "with Christ" This is another use of the Greek preposition syn, which means joint participation with. These three grammatical features: (1) syn compounds; (2) the aorist tenses of Col_2:11-13; Col_2:15; Col_2:20; and (3) the first class conditional sentence of Col_2:20 show what believers already are in Christ!
NASB "to the elementary principles of the world"
NKJV "from the basic principles of the world"
NRSV "to the elemental spirits of the universe"
TEV "from the ruling spirits of the universe"
NJB "to the principles of this world"
This term (stoicheia) is defined as
1. fundamental principles (cf. Heb_5:12; Heb_6:1)
2. basic elements of the world, such as earth, wind, water or fire (cf. 2Pe_3:10; 2Pe_3:12)
3. elementary spirits, (cf. Gal_4:3; Gal_4:8-9; Col_2:8; Eph_6:10-12)
4. heavenly bodies (cf. Enoch 52:9-10 and the early church fathers who thought it referred to the seven planetary spheres, cf. Baur, Arnt, Ginrich, Danker's A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 776)
The basic etymology was "something in a series" or "row." See note at Col_2:8.
Paul viewed life as a spiritual struggle (cf. Eph_2:2-3; Eph_6:10-18). Humans were beset by evil from within (a fallen nature, cf. Genesis 3), by a fallen world system (cf. Genesis 3) and by personal evil (Satan, the demonic and the stoicheia).
James Stewart's, A Man in Christ, has an interesting comment:
"Sin was not something a man did: it was something that took possession of him, something the man was, something that turned him into an open enemy of the God who loved him. It brought outward penalties: 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' But far more appalling than these were its inward results. It tormented the conscience: 'O wretched man that I am!' It brought the will into abject slavery: 'the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.' It destroyed fellowship with God: men were 'alienated,' 'without God in the world.' It hardened the heart, and blinded the judgment, and warped the moral sense: 'God gave them over to a reprobate mind.' It destroyed life itself: 'the wages of sin is death.'
Such is the apostle's estimate of sin's overwhelming gravity. And through it all, even where sin is regarded as an external force waiting to take advantage of human nature in its frailty, he will allow no blurring of the fact of personal accountability. Principalities and powers may lie in wait, but in the last resort man's is the choice, man's the responsibility, and man's the doom" (pp. 106-107).
For "world" see Special Topic: Paul's Use of Kosmos at Col_1:6.
▣ "decrees" This term has the same root as Col_2:14. Christ did not release believers from the Mosaic Law to become entangled again in Gnostic rules or any humanly mandated requirements. Oh, the freedom believers have in Christ! Oh, the pain of well-intended religious legalists!
Col_2:21 "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" This series has no verbs and no connectors, which makes it emphatic! It may have been a slogan of the false teachers. These are examples of human religious rules which did not bring true righteousness. Humans have always had an ascetic, legalistic tendency (cf. Isa_29:13; Mat_15:10-12; Mar_7:19; Rom_14:17; Rom_14:21), but it is a hollow religion of self effort, self glory and self sufficiency (cf. Col_2:22-23).
Col_2:22 "(which all refer to things destined to perish with the using)" In Mat_15:7-20 and Mar_7:6-23 Jesus discusses this same type of issue in relation to the food laws of Leviticus 11.
▣ "perish" See Special Topic below.
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Col_2:23 "the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and the severe treatment of the body" This was Jesus' condemnation of the Scribes and Pharisees (cf. Isa_29:13).
Paul describes the false teachers religious practices by three terms:
1. NASB "self-made religion"
NKJV "self-imposed religion"
NRSV "self-imposed deity"
TEV "forced worship of angels"
NJB "The cultivation of the will"
This term is used only here in the NT. It may have been coined by Paul or earlier Christians. The NASB seems to have caught the essence of the term, "self-made religion." TEV assumes that it reflects Col_2:18.
2. NASB "self-abasement"
NKJV, TEV "false humility"
NRSV "humility"
NJB (combines the second and third terms)
This same Greek word is used in Col_2:18. Literally it means "humility," but the context favors the NKJV and TEV translation.
3. NASB, NRSV,
TEV "severe treatment of the body"
NKJV "neglect of the body"
NJB "a humility which takes no account of the body"
This reflects the ascetic religious view that to deny one's bodily needs showed or developed religious piety. Examples are (1) denying the body food; (2) celibacy; (3) lack of clothing in winter, etc. This followed the Greek view that the body (matter) was evil.
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