_WARNINGS AGAINST TWIN CHIEF ERRORS, BASED UPON PREVIOUS POSITIVE
TEACHING._
"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect
of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of
things to come; but the body is Christ's. Let no man rob you of your
prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels,
dwelling in the things which he hath seen, vainly puffed up by his
fleshly mind, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body,
being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands,
increaseth with the increase of God."--COL. ii. 16-19 (Rev. Ver.).
"Let no man _therefore_ judge you." That "therefore" sends us back to
what the Apostle has been saying in the previous verses, in order to
find there the ground of these earnest warnings. That ground is the
whole of the foregoing exposition of the Christian relation to Christ as
far back as verse 9, but especially the great truths contained in the
immediately preceding verses, that the cross of Christ is the death of
law, and God's triumph over all the powers of evil. Because it is so,
the Colossian Christians are exhorted to claim and use their
emancipation from both. Thus we have here the very heart and centre of
the practical counsels of the Epistle--the double blasts of the trumpet
warning against the two most pressing dangers besetting the Church. They
are the same two which we have often met already--on the one hand, a
narrow Judaising enforcement of ceremonial and punctilios of outward
observance; on the other hand, a dreamy Oriental absorption in
imaginations of a crowd of angelic mediators obscuring the one gracious
presence of Christ our Intercessor.
I. Here then we have first, the claim for Christian liberty, with the
great truth on which it is built.
The points in regard to which that liberty is to be exercised are
specified. They are no doubt those, in addition to circumcision, which
were principally in question then and there. "Meat and drink" refers to
restrictions in diet, such as the prohibition of "unclean" things in the
Mosaic law, and the question of the lawfulness of eating meat offered to
idols; perhaps also, such as the Nazarite vow. There were few
regulations as to "drink" in the Old Testament, so that probably other
ascetic practices besides the Mosaic regulations were in question, but
these must have been unimportant, else Paul could not have spoken of the
whole as being a "shadow of things to come." The second point in regard
to which liberty is here claimed is that of the sacred seasons of
Judaism: the annual festivals, the monthly feast of the new moon, the
weekly Sabbath.
The relation of the Gentile converts to these Jewish practices was an
all-important question for the early Church. It was really the question
whether Christianity was to be more than a Jewish sect--and the main
force which, under God, settled the contest, was the vehemence and logic
of the Apostle Paul.
Here he lays down the ground on which that whole question about diet and
days, and all such matters, is to be settled. They "are a shadow of
things to come" but the body is of Christ. "Coming events cast their
shadows _before_." That great work of Divine love, the mission of
Christ, Whose "goings forth have been from everlasting," may be thought
of as having set out from the Throne as soon as time was, travelling in
the greatness of its strength, like the beams of some far-off star that
have not yet reached a dark world. The light from the Throne is behind
Him as He advances across the centuries, and the shadow is thrown far in
front.
Now that involves two thoughts about the Mosaic law and whole system.
First, the purely prophetic and symbolic character of the Old Testament
order, and especially of the Old Testament ritual. The absurd
extravagance of many attempts to "spiritualize" the latter should not
blind us to the truth which they caricature. Nor, on the other hand,
should we be so taken with new attempts to reconstruct our notions of
Jewish history and the dates of Old Testament books, as to forget that,
though the New Testament is committed to no theory on these points, it
is committed to the Divine origin and prophetic purpose of the Mosaic
law and Levitical worship. We should thankfully accept all teaching
which free criticism and scholarship can give us as to the process by
which, and the time when, that great symbolic system of acted prophecy
was built up; but we shall be further away than ever from understanding
the Old Testament if we have gained critical knowledge of its genesis,
and have lost the belief that its symbols were given by God to prophesy
of His Son. That is the key to both Testaments; and I cannot but believe
that the uncritical reader who reads his book of the law and the
prophets with that conviction, has got nearer the very marrow of the
book, than the critic, if he have parted with it, can ever come.
Sacrifice, altar, priest, temple spake of Him. The distinctions of meats
were meant, among other purposes, to familiarize men with the
conceptions of purity and impurity, and so, by stimulating conscience,
to wake the sense of need of a Purifier. The yearly feasts set forth
various aspects of the great work of Christ, and the sabbath showed in
outward form the rest into which He leads those who cease from their own
works and wear His yoke. All these observances, and the whole system to
which they belong, are like out-riders who precede a prince on his
progress, and as they gallop through sleeping villages, rouse them with
the cry, "The king is coming!"
And when the king _has_ come, where are the heralds? and when the
reality has come, who wants symbols? and if that which threw the shadow
forward through the ages has arrived, how shall the shadow be visible
too? Therefore the second principle here laid down, namely the cessation
of all these observances, and their like, is really involved in the
first, namely their prophetic character.
The practical conclusion drawn is very noteworthy, because it seems much
narrower than the premises warrant. Paul does not say--therefore let no
man observe any of these any more; but takes up the much more modest
ground--let no man _judge_ you about them. He claims a wide liberty of
variation, and all that he repels is the right of anybody to dragoon
Christian men into ceremonial observances on the ground that they are
necessary. He does not quarrel with the rites, but with men insisting
on the necessity of the rites.
In his own practice he gave the best commentary on his meaning. When
they said to him, "You _must_ circumcise Titus," he said, "Then I will
_not_." When nobody tried to compel him, he took Timothy, and of his own
accord circumcised him to avoid scandals. When it was needful as a
protest, he rode right over all the prescriptions of the law, and "did
eat with Gentiles." When it was advisable as a demonstration that he
himself "walked orderly and kept the law," he performed the rites of
purification and united in the temple worship.
In times of transition wise supporters of the new will not be in a hurry
to break with the old. "I will lead on softly, according as the flock
and the children be able to endure," said Jacob, and so says every good
shepherd.
The brown sheaths remain on the twig after the tender green leaf has
burst from within them, but there is no need to pull them off, for they
will drop presently. "I will wear three surplices if they like," said
Luther once. "Neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not
are we the worse," said Paul. Such is the spirit of the words here. It
is a plea for Christian liberty. If not insisted on as necessary, the
outward observances may be allowed. If they are regarded as helps, or as
seemly adjuncts or the like, there is plenty of room for difference of
opinion and for variety of practice, according to temperament and taste
and usage. There are principles which should regulate even these
diversities of practice, and Paul has set these forth, in the great
chapter about meats in the Epistle to the Romans. But it is a different
thing altogether when any external observances are insisted on as
essential, either from the old Jewish or from the modern sacramentarian
point of view. If a man comes saying, "Except ye be circumcised, ye
cannot be saved," the only right answer is, Then I will not be
circumcised, and if _you_ are, because you believe that you cannot be
saved without it, "Christ is become of none effect to you." Nothing is
necessary but union to Him, and that comes through no outward
observance, but through the faith which worketh by love. Therefore, let
no man judge you, but repel all such attempts at thrusting any
ceremonial ritual observances on you, on the plea of necessity, with the
emancipating truth that the cross of Christ is the death of law.
A few words may be said here on the bearing of the principles laid down
in these verses on the religious observance of Sunday. The obligation of
the Jewish sabbath has passed away as much as sacrifices and
circumcision. That seems unmistakably the teaching here. But the
institution of a weekly day of rest is distinctly put in Scripture as
independent of, and prior to, the special form and meaning given to the
institution in the Mosaic law. That is the natural conclusion from the
narrative of the creative rest in Genesis, and from our Lord's emphatic
declaration that the sabbath was made for "man"--that is to say, for the
race. Many traces of the pre-Mosaic sabbath have been adduced, and among
others we may recall the fact that recent researches show it to have
been observed by the Accadians, the early inhabitants of Assyria. It is
a physical and moral necessity, and that is a sadly mistaken
benevolence which on the plea of culture or amusement for the many,
compels the labour of the few, and breaks down the distinction between
the Sunday and the rest of the week.
The religious observance of the first day of the week rests on no
recorded command, but has a higher origin, inasmuch as it is the outcome
of a felt want. The early disciples naturally gathered together for
worship on the day which had become so sacred to them. At first, no
doubt, they observed the Jewish sabbath, and only gradually came to the
practice which we almost see growing before our eyes in the Acts of the
Apostles, in the mention of the disciples at Troas coming together on
the first day of the week to break bread, and which we gather, from the
Apostle's instructions as to weekly setting apart money for charitable
purposes, to have existed in the Church at Corinth; as we know, that
even in his lonely island prison far away from the company of his
brethren, the Apostle John was in a condition of high religious
contemplation on the Lord's day, ere yet he heard the solemn voice and
saw "the things which are."
This gradual growing up of the practice is in accordance with the whole
spirit of the New Covenant, which has next to nothing to say about the
externals of worship, and leaves the new life to shape itself. Judaism
gave prescriptions and minute regulations; Christianity, the religion of
the spirit, gives principles. The necessity, for the nourishment of the
Divine life, of the religious observance of the day of rest is certainly
not less now than at first. In the hurry and drive of our modern life
with the world forcing itself on us at every moment, we cannot keep up
the warmth of devotion unless we use this day, not merely for physical
rest, and family enjoyment, but for worship. They who know their own
slothfulness of spirit, and are in earnest in seeking after a deeper,
fuller Christian life, will thankfully own, "the week were dark but for
its light." I distrust the spirituality which professes that all life is
a sabbath, and therefore holds itself absolved from special seasons of
worship. If the stream of devout communion is to flow through all our
days, there must be frequent reservoirs along the road, or it will be
lost in the sand, like the rivers of higher Asia. It is a poor thing to
say, keep the day as a day of worship because it is a commandment.
Better to think of it as a great gift for the highest purposes; and not
let it be merely a day of rest for jaded bodies, but make it one of
refreshment for cumbered spirits, and rekindle the smouldering flame of
devotion, by drawing near to Christ in public and in private. So shall
we gather stores that may help us to go in the strength of that meat for
some more marches on the dusty road of life.
II. The Apostle passes on to his second peal of warning,--that against
the teaching about angel mediators, which would rob the Colossian
Christians of their prize,--and draws a rapid portrait of the teachers
of whom they are to beware.
"Let no man rob you of your prize." The metaphor is the familiar one of
the race or the wrestling ground; the umpire or judge is Christ; the
reward is that incorruptible crown of glory, of righteousness, woven not
of fading bay leaves, but of sprays from the "tree of life," which dower
with undying blessedness the brows round which they are wreathed.
Certain people are trying to rob them of their prize--not consciously,
for that would be inconceivable, but such is the tendency of their
teaching. No names will be mentioned, but he draws a portrait of the
robber with swift firm hand, as if he had said, If you want to know whom
I mean, here he is. Four clauses, like four rapid strokes of the pencil,
do it, and are marked in the Greek by four participles, the first of
which is obscured in the Authorised Version. "Delighting in humility and
the worshipping of angels." So probably the first clause should be
rendered. The first words are almost contradictory, and are meant to
suggest that the humility has not the genuine ring about it.
Self-conscious humility in which a man takes delight is not the real
thing. A man who knows that he is humble, and is self-complacent about
it, glancing out of the corners of his downcast eyes at any mirror where
he can see himself, is not humble at all. "The devil's darling vice is
the pride which apes humility."
So _very_ humble were these people that they would not venture to pray
to God! _There_ was humility indeed. So far beneath did they feel
themselves, that the utmost they could do was to lay hold of the lowest
link of a long chain of angel mediators, in hope that the vibration
might run upwards through all the links, and perhaps reach the throne at
last. Such fantastic abasement which would not take God at His word, nor
draw near to Him in His Son, was really the very height of pride.
Then follows a second descriptive clause, of which no altogether
satisfactory interpretation has yet been given. Possibly, as has been
suggested, we have here an early error in the text, which has affected
all the manuscripts, and cannot now be corrected. Perhaps, on the whole,
the translation adopted by the Revised Version presents the least
difficulty--"dwelling in the things which he hath seen." In that case
the seeing would be not by the senses, but by visions and pretended
revelations, and the charge against the false teachers would be that
they "walked in a vain show" of unreal imaginations and visionary
hallucinations, whose many-coloured misleading lights they followed
rather than the plain sunshine of revealed facts in Jesus Christ.
"Vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind" is the next feature in the
portrait. The self-conscious humility was only skin deep, and covered
the utmost intellectual arrogance. The heretic teacher, like a blown
bladder, was swollen with what after all was only wind; he was dropsical
from conceit of "mind," or, as we should say, "intellectual ability,"
which after all was only the instrument and organ of the "flesh," the
sinful self. And, of course, being all these things, he would have no
firm grip of Christ, from whom such tempers and views were sure to
detach him. Therefore the damning last clause of the indictment is "not
holding the Head." How could he do so? And the slackness of his grasp of
the Lord Jesus would make all these errors and faults ten times worse.
Now the special forms of these errors which are here dealt with are all
gone past recall. But the tendencies which underlay these special forms
are as rampant as ever, and work unceasingly to loosen our hold of our
dear Lord. The worship of angels is dead, but we are still often
tempted to think that we are too lowly and sinful to claim our portion
of the faithful promises of God. The spurious humility is by no means
out of date, which knows better than God does, whether He can forgive us
our sins, and bend over us in love. We do not slip in angel mediators
between ourselves and Him, but the tendency to put the sole work of
Jesus Christ "into commission," is not dead. We are all tempted to grasp
at others as well as at Him, for our love, and trust, and obedience, and
we all need the reminder that to lay hold of any other props is to lose
hold of Him, and that he who does not cleave to Christ alone, does not
cleave to Christ at all.
We do not see visions and dream dreams any more, except here and there
some one led astray by a so-called "spiritualism," but plenty of us
attach more importance to our own subjective fancies or speculations
about the obscurer parts of Christianity than to the clear revelation of
God in Christ. The "unseen world" has for many minds an unwholesome
attraction. The Gnostic spirit is still in full force among us, which
despises the foundation facts and truths of the gospel as "milk for
babes," and values its own baseless artificial speculations about
subordinate matters, which are unrevealed because they are subordinate,
and fascinating to some minds because unrevealed, far above the truths
which are clear because they are vital, and insipid to such minds
because they are clear. We need to be reminded that Christianity is not
for speculation, but to make us good, and that "He who has fashioned
their hearts alike," has made us all to live by the same air, to be
nourished by the same bread from heaven, to be saved and purified by
the same truth. That is the gospel which the little child can
understand, of which the outcast and the barbarian can get some kind of
hold, which the failing spirit groping in the darkness of death can
dimly see as its light in the valley--that is the all-important part of
the gospel. What needs special training and capacity to understand is no
essential portion of the truth that is meant for the world.
And a swollen self-conceit is of all things the most certain to keep a
man away from Christ. We must feel our utter helplessness and need,
before we shall lay hold on Him, and if ever that wholesome lowly sense
of our own emptiness is clouded over, that moment will our fingers relax
their tension, and that moment will the flow of life into our deadness
run slow and pause. Whatever slackens our hold of Christ tends to rob us
of the final prize, that crown of life which He gives.
Hence the solemn earnestness of these warnings. It was not only a
doctrine more or less that was at stake, but it was their eternal life.
Certain truths believed would increase the firmness of their hold on
their Lord, and thereby would secure the prize. Disbelieved, the
disbelief would slacken their grasp of Him, and thereby would deprive
them of it. We are often told that the gospel gives heaven for right
belief, and that that is unjust. But if a man does not believe a thing,
he cannot have in his character or feelings the influence which the
belief of it would produce. If he does not believe that Christ died for
his sins, and that all his hopes are built on that great Saviour, he
will not cleave to Him in love and dependence. If he does not so cleave
to Him he will not draw from Him the life which would mould his
character and stir him to run the race. If he do not run the race he
will never win nor wear the crown. That crown is the reward and issue of
character and conduct, made possible by the communication of strength
and new nature from Jesus, which again is made possible through our
faith laying hold of Him as revealed in certain truths, and of these
truths as revealing Him. Therefore, intellectual error may loose our
hold on Christ, and if we slacken that, we shall forfeit the prize. Mere
speculative interest about the less plainly revealed corners of
Christian truth may, and often do, act in paralysing the limbs of the
Christian athlete. "Ye did run well, what hath hindered you?" has to be
asked of many whom a spirit akin to this described in our text has made
languid in the race. To us all, knowing in some measure how the whole
sum of influences around us work to detach us from our Lord, and so to
rob us of the prize which is inseparable from His presence, the solemn
exhortation which He speaks from heaven may well come, "Hold fast that
thou hast; let no man take thy crown."
III. The source and manner of all true growth is next set forth, in
order to enforce the warning, and to emphasize the need of holding the
Head.
Christ is not merely represented supreme and sovereign, when He is
called "the head." The metaphor goes much deeper, and points to Him as
the source of a real spiritual life, from Him communicated to all the
members of the true Church, and constituting it an organic whole. We
have found the same expression twice already in the Epistle; once as
applied to His relation to "the body, the Church" (i. 18), and once in
reference to the "principalities and powers." The errors in the
Colossian Church derogated from Christ's sole sovereign place as
fountain of all life natural and spiritual for all orders of beings, and
hence the emphasis of the Apostle's proclamation of the counter truth.
That life which flows from the head is diffused through the whole body
by the various and harmonious action of all the parts. The body is
"supplied and knit together," or in other words, the functions of
nutrition and compaction into a whole are performed by the "joints and
bands," in which last word are included muscles, nerves, tendons, and
any of the "connecting bands which strap the body together." Their
action is the condition of growth; but the Head is the source of all
which the action of the members transmits to the body. Christ is the
source of all nourishment. From Him flows the life-blood which feeds the
whole, and by which every form of supply is ministered whereby the body
grows. Christ is the source of all unity. Churches have been bound
together by other bonds, such as creeds, polity, or even nationality;
but that external bond is only like a rope round a bundle of fagots,
while the true, inward unity springing from common possession of the
life of Christ, is as the unity of some great tree, through which the
same sap circulates from massive bole to the tiniest leaf that dances at
the tip of the farthest branch.
These blessed results of supply and unity are effected through the
action of the various parts. If each organ is in healthy action, the
body grows. There is diversity in offices; the same life is light in
the eyes, beauty in the cheek, strength in the hand, thought in the
brain. The more you rise in the scale of life the more the body is
differentiated, from the simple sac that can be turned inside out and
has no division of parts or offices, up to man. So in the Church. The
effect of Christianity is to heighten individuality, and to give each
man his own proper "gift from God," and therefore each man his office,
"one after this manner and another after that." Therefore is there need
for the freest possible unfolding of each man's idiosyncrasy, heightened
and hallowed by an indwelling Christ, lest the body should be the poorer
if any member's activity be suppressed, or any one man be warped from
his own work wherein he is strong, to become a feeble copy of another's.
The perfect light is the blending of all colours.
A community where each member thus holds firmly by the Head, and each
ministers in his degree to the nourishment and compaction of the
members, will, says Paul, increase with the increase of God. The
increase will come from Him, will be pleasing to Him, will be
essentially the growth of His own life in the body. There is an increase
not of God. These heretical teachers were swollen with dropsical
self-conceit; but this is wholesome, solid growth. For individuals and
communities of professing Christians the lesson is always seasonable,
that it is very easy to get an increase of the other kind. The
individual may increase in apparent knowledge, in volubility, in visions
and speculations, in so-called Christian work; the Church may increase
in members, in wealth, in culture, in influence in the world, in
apparent activities, in subscription lists, and the like--and it may
all be not sound growth, but proud flesh, which needs the knife. One way
only there is by which we may increase with the increase of God, and
that is that we keep fast hold of Jesus Christ, and "let Him not go, for
He is our life." The one exhortation which includes all that is needful,
and which being obeyed, all ceremonies and all speculations will drop
into their right place, and become helps, not snares, is the exhortation
which Barnabas gave to the new Gentile converts at Antioch--that "with
purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord."