Colossians 2:20

Col_2:20-23

If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world.

Two final tests of the false teaching

I. The Christians death with Christ.

1. To Paul the Cross of Christ was the altar on which the oblation had been offered which took away his sin, and because of that the law of his own life, and the power which assimilated him to his Lord.

(1) We talk of an old man being dead to youthful follies and passions and ambitions, and we mean that they have ceased to interest him, that he is separated from, and insensible to them. So if we have got hold of Christ as our Saviour, that will deaden us to all which was our life.

(2) Strong emotion, too, makes us insensible to things around. Many a man amid the excitement of the battlefield receives, but recks not of the wound. Absorption of thought and interest leads to absence of mind when surroundings are entirely unfelt. Higher tastes drive out lower ones, as some great stream turned into a new channel will sweep it clear of mud. So if we arc joined to Christ He will fill our souls with strong emotions and interests which will deaden our sensitiveness to things around.

2. To what shall we die if we are Christians?

(1) To sin (Rom_6:11).

(2) To self (2Co_5:14-15).

(3) To the law (Rom_7:6).

(4) To the world (Gal_6:14).

Here it is to the rudiments of the world (Col_2:8). Elementary precepts, fit for babes, moving in the region of the material. Why then, triumphantly asks Paul, do you subject yourselves to ordinances (Col_2:4) such as handle not, nor taste, nor touch, vehement reiterations of the ascetic teachers with an increasing intolerance--dont lay hold of, dont touch with the tip of your finger. So asceticism grows by indulgence. And, then, the whole thing is out of date, and a misapprehension of the genius of Christianity. Mans work in religion is ever to confine it to the surface. Christs work is to focus it on the inner man of the heart, knowing that if that be right the visible will come right.

3. Paul goes on to show (Col_2:22) that these meats and drinks, of which so much is said, are perishable. You cannot use them without using them up. Is it fitting for men who lave died with Christ to this perishable world to make so much of its perishing things? But we may widen the thought so as to make it include sybaritic luxury as well as asceticism. Dives in his purple and the monk in his hair shirt, both make too much of what they should put on. The one with his feasts and the other with his fasts, both think too much of what they shall eat and drink. The man who lives on high with his Lord puts all these things in their right place. There are things which do not perish with the using. All Christlike graces grow with exercise.

4. The final inconsistency between the Christian position and these practical errors is glanced at in after the commandments of men, A quotation, used by our Lord, from Isa_29:13. It is not fitting for those in union with Christ to be under the authority of men. Here is the true democracy of the Christian society--Ye were redeemed with a price; be not servants of men. We are bound to take our orders from one Master.

II. The failure of the false teaching to attain its end (verse 23).

1. The apostle admits that it had a show of wisdom, and was very fascinating. It had the look--

(1) Of devotion and zealous worship; but on closer examination it is the indulgence of the will and not surrender to God. They are not worshipping Him as He has appointed, and therefore not at all. Whether offered in a cathedral or a barn, in a cope or a fustian jacket, such service is not accepted.

(2) Of humility. It looked very humble to say, We cannot suppose that such flesh-encompassed creatures can have fellowship with God; but it was a great deal more humble to take Him at His word and allow him to settle possibilities.

(3) Of discipline. Any asceticism is a great deal more to mens taste than abandoning self. They will rather stick hooks in their backs than give up their sins or yield up their wills. Our poor human nature travesties Christs solemn command to deny ourselves into doing something unpleasant to recommend ourselves to God.

2. The conclusive condemnation, however, lies in the fact that they are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh (see on verse 18). This is one great end of all moral and spiritual discipline, and if practical regulations do not secure it they are worthless. By flesh is meant the entire unrenewed self which thinks, and feels, and wills apart from God. To indulge and satisfy it is to die, to slay and suppress it is to live. A man may be keeping the whole round of ordinances and seven devils may be in his heart. They distinctly tend to foster some of the works of the flesh, such as self-righteousness and uncharitableness, and they as distinctly fail to subdue any of them. A man may stand on a pillar like Simon Stylites for years and be none the better. The world and the flesh are willing that Christianity should shrivel into a religion of prohibitions and ceremonials, because all manner of vices and meannesses may thrive and breed under them like scorpions under stones. There is only one thing that will put the collar on the neck of the animal within us, and that is the power of the indwelling Christ. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Ritualism described and condemned

I. The appeal--

1. Was to their position and profession as Christians. They had died with Christ, and, therefore, to that which was ful filled in His death.

2. Was based upon their Christian liberty. What had they to do with those things from which they were delivered by Christs death--the mere material alphabet of religion? It was as ridiculous as if an educated man should go back to his spelling book; or a liberated slave fear his task master.

3. Described the character of the bondage of which they were in danger. Touch not, etc., are not Pauls words, but the mottoes of the heretical teachers, and refer to distinctions in meats and drinks. True Christians ought to be far above the region of such carnal commandments, for to them all things are pure, and every creature of God good. Moreover, they perish in the using, and how then can they benefit the soul? (Rom_14:17; 1Co_8:8). And lastly they are based on human authority, whereas the Christian owes allegiance to none but Christ.

II. The argument.

1. The ordinances are pretentious. They have a show of wisdom.

(1) In will worship, or some mode of worship God has not required.

(2) In humility. But it is an affectation of lowliness which cannot look up directly to God in Christ, but thinks it necessary to find some subordinate mediators. Such prevails now.

(3) In neglecting the body. The fleshly tabernacle may indeed be weakened without the slightest effect in conquering any sinful tendency in the soul.

(4) How these rudiments of the world had a show of wisdom is not difficult to see. To go beyond the Divine requirement in self-denial, and do works of supererogation has the appearance of magnanimity.

2. These ordinances are really worthless.

(1) Negatively--Not in any honour--they are of no spiritual efficacy.

(2) Positively--they gratify the flesh, and prop up the fleshly mind with notions of its self righteousness and sufficiency. Lessons:

1. The vanity and error of asceticism.

2. The sacredness of Christian liberty. (J. Spence, D. D.)

The ceremonial in religion

I. Is simply elementary. The rudiments of the world. It is in its nature transitory and imperfect. It conveys knowledge but in part; and when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part is done away.

II. Is unworthy the submission of the Christian believer. The believer is liberated from the slavery of the ceremonial.

III. In its main features is universally the same.

1. It is the same in its dictatorial prohibitions. Touch not, etc.

2. It is the same in its undue exaltation of the external and the transitory, Which perish, etc.

3. It is the same in its human origin. After the commandments and doctrines of men. The ceremonial in religion is an accumulation of the commandments and doctrines of men. Depending on human authority, it has no value in itself; and when it is made obligatory in order to salvation, it is an insult to Christ, and an intolerable servitude to man.

IV. Can never satisfy the many-sided wants of humanity.

1. It pretends to a wisdom it does not possess.

(1) In self-imposed methods of worship. The enthusiast for the ceremonial argues that he who only does what God positively demands does only what is common; but he who goes beyond reaches a higher degree of saintliness.

(2) In the affectation of a spurious humility. It is a pretence of wisdom to renounce all worldly splendour, and profess to live in poverty and seclusion.

(3) In an unjustifiable indifference to bodily wants. The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and is to be honoured, and all its just wants satisfied, in order that its best powers may be employed in the service of God. But the abuse of the body in starvation and neglect is a folly and a sin.

2. It is of no value in preventing the indulgence of the flesh. Not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh. The radical error of the ascetic lies in his belief that evil resides in matter. Not the body, but in the soul is the source of sin. (G. Barlow.)

Religion does not consist, in bodily neglect

John Wesley, before his conversion, anxiously seeking rest for his soul, proposed to himself a solitary life in one of the Yorkshire dales. His wise mother interposed, admonishing him prophetically that God had better work for him to do. He travelled some miles to consult a serious man. The Bible knows nothing of a solitary religion, says this good man, and Wesley turned about his face toward that great career which was to make his history a part of the history of his country and of the world. (R. Stevens.)

The souls true freedom in Christ alone

Let me tell you again my old story of the eagle. For many months it pined and drooped in its cage, and seemed to have forgotten that it was of the lineage of the old plumed kings of the forest and the mountain; and its bright eye faded, and its strong wings drooped, and its kingly crest was bowed, and its plumes were torn and soiled amid the bars and dust of its prison-house. So, in pity of its forlorn life, we carried its cage out to the open air, and broke the iron wire and flung wide the lowly door; and slowly, falteringly, despondingly, it crept forth to the sultry air of that cloudy summer noon and looked listlessly about it. But just then, from a rift in an overhanging cloud, a golden sunbeam flashed upon the scene. And it was enough. Then it lifted its loyal crest, the dim eye blazed again, the soiled plumes unfolded and rustled, the strong wings moved themselves, with a rapturous cry it sprang heavenward. Higher, higher, in broader, braver circles it mounted toward the firmament, and we saw it no more as it rushed through the storm-clouds and soared to the sun. And would, O ye winged spirits! who dream and pine in this poor earthly bondage, that only one ray from the blessed Sun of Righteousness might fall on you this hour! for then would there be the flash of a glorious eye and a cry of rapture, and a sway of exulting wings, as another redeemed and risen spirit sprang heavenward unto God! (C. Wadsworth, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Col 2:20-23. Wherefore — The inference begun Col 2:16 is continued. A new inference follows Col 3:1. If ye be dead with Christ — As by receiving the ordinance of baptism ye profess to be; from the rudiments, or elements, of the world — See on Col 2:8. From those ceremonies, which persons among the Gentiles or the Jews are apt to place so much dependance on; why, as though living in the world — In the manner you formerly did, and being still influenced by the spirit of the world, and associated with worldly people; are ye subject to ordinances — To mere human institutions, heathen or Jewish? Why receive ye or use ordinances, which Christ hath not enjoined, and from which he hath made his followers free? Or the sense may be, Since you professed yourselves at your baptism to be spiritually dead with Christ, and by his death to be freed even from the ceremonies of the law, (though of God’s own institution,) why should you submit to superstitious rites and ordinances of the like kind invented by men? Touch not — Any unclean thing; taste not — Any forbidden meat; handle not — Any consecrated vessel. Most commentators suppose that the Jewish ceremonies only are here referred to, and that this was directed to the Jewish converts at Colosse: but “as I have no doubt,” says Macknight, “that it was intended for the Gentiles, I think the ordinances of which the apostle speaks were the rules of the Pythagoreans respecting abstinence from animal food, and of the Platonists concerning the worshipping of angels, condemned Col 2:18, which it seems some of the church at Colosse had actually begun to follow; perhaps at the persuasion of the Judaizing teachers, who wished to subject them to all the rites of the law.” Which all are to perish in the using — All which things cannot be used, but they must perish in and by the use of them, being made merely for the body, and with it going to corruption, and having therefore no further use, no influence on the mind. The original expression, however, εις φθοραν τη αποχρησει, may be rendered, tend to corruption, in, or by, the abuse of them; and the word φθορα being often used by St. Peter, not for a natural, but a moral corruption, (see 2Pe 1:4; 2Pe 2:12; 2Pe 2:19,) the meaning of the verse may be, that when these ceremonies are observed in compliance with the commands and doctrines of men as things necessary, they corrupt men who thus abuse them. Thus Doddridge: “All which things tend to the corruption of that excellent religion into which you have the honour to be initiated, by the abuse of them, according to the commandments and doctrines of mistaken and ill-designing men, who insist so eagerly upon them, as if they were essential to salvation.” Which things indeed have a show, a pretence, of wisdom — Of being an excellent doctrine, or wise institution, and are, in that view, gravely insisted upon, especially by the more rigorous sects; in will-worship — A worship, or service, which they themselves have devised. “The word εθελοθρησκεια nearly resembles the phrase found Col 2:18, θελων εν θρησκεια, delighting in the worship. But it can hardly be literally translated, so as to express the same idea. But the meaning is, a worship of human invention, consequently performed from one’s own will.” And in an affected humility and neglecting of the body — Greek, αφειδια σωματος, a not sparing of the body; namely, by subjecting it to much mortification, in denying it many gratifications, and putting it to many inconveniences. Not in any honour — Namely, of the body; or not of any real value, as τιμη may be rendered, namely, before God: to the satisfying of the flesh — Nor do they, upon the whole, mortify, but satisfy the flesh. They indulge man’s corrupt nature, his self-will, pride, and desire of being distinguished from others. Doddridge reads, to the dishonourable satisfying of the flesh; their severity to the body, rigorous as it seemed, being no true mortification, nor tending to dispose the mind to it. On the contrary, while it puffed men up with a vain conceit of their own sanctity, it might be said rather to satisfy the flesh, even while it seemed most to afflict it.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

c. Caution against asceticism, Col_2:20-23.

20. Dead with Christ—Better, if ye died with him, in your baptism; see on Col_2:12. The rudiments of the world, here and in Col_2:8, are identical with the handwriting in Col_2:14, which was claimed to be still in force. It died with Christ, and you so share in his death that you are removed from its authority.

Why—The expostulation is very pertinent. As…

living in the world—In things outside of Christ.

Are ye subject—Literally, why do ye allow yourselves to be dogmatized to? St. Paul thus shows the arrogance of the attempt to bring them under the old wiped-out system, and rebukes the Colossians for listening to it. While they were in imminent danger, it is not clear that any of them had as yet fallen.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 20-23. The apostle"s fourth and last warning is directed against ascetic rules of life.

If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world (vers. 8, 10-13; Col_3:3; Rom_6:1-11 Rom_7:1-6; 2Co_5:14-17) "Therefore" is struck out by the Revisers on the best authority. It would imply a logical dependence of this verse upon the last, which does not exist. This warning, like those of vers. 16, 18, looks back to the previous section, and especially to vers. 8, 10, 12. It is a new application of St. Paul"s fundamental principle of the union of the Christian with Christ in his death and resurrection (see notes, vers. 11, 12). Accepting the death of Christ as supplying the means of his redemption, (Col_1:14, Col_1:22) and the law of his future life (2Co_5:14, 2Co_5:15; Gal_2:20) the Christian breaks with and becomes dead (to and) from all other, former religious principles; which appear to him now but childish, tentative gropings after and preparations for what is given him in Christ. (comp. Gal_2:19 Gal_3:24 Gal_4:2, Gal_4:3; Rom_7:6) On "rudiments," see note, ver. 8. There these "rudiments of the world" appear as general ("philosophical") principles of religion, intrinsically false and empty; here they are moral rules of life, mean and worthless substitutes for "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." (For the Pauline idiom, "died from (so as to be separate, or free from)," (comp. Rom_7:2, Rom_7:6; Act_13:39) Why, as (men) living in (the) world, are you made subject to decrees (Rom_6:3-9) We are united with Christ in his death. Community in death involves community in life, and thus our death with Christ involves not only

1. death to sin, (Rom_6:2)

2. death to self; (2Co_5:14, 2Co_5:15) but

3. death to the Law (Rom_7:6; Gal_2:14)

4. death to the world, (Gal_6:14) and

5. death "from the rudiments of the world". (Col_2:20)

6. The inconsistency of this fellowship with a mere ritualistic religion.

(1) Such a religion is rudimentary, disciplinary, designed for the infancy of the Church, not for its period of adult experience and privilege. Christ by his death wiped out these rudiments which have their sphere in the visible life of the world. They are but "weak and beggarly elements," from which we are forever separated by the death of Christ. In him all things have become new. Christians cannot, therefore, live in that which Christ died to take away. Besides, Christians are living no longer in the world. "They are not of the world;" yet, if they submitted to its ordinances, they were "as though living in the world." They had been called out of the world to be of another body, of which Christ is the Head. Therefore they were not to be conformed to the fashion of the world. (Rom_12:2)

(2) A ritualistic religion is usually negative rather than positive in its character, being strong in the clement of prohibition: "Handle not, nor taste, nor touch." The apostle repeats the prohibitions of the false teachers in their own words. They, believing that matter was essentially evil, resolved upon reducing our contact with it in its most familiar forms to a minimum. The prohibitions here referred to go far beyond the Levitical enactments, which had no ascetic tendency. The Essenes, who were forerunners of the Colossian errorists, shunned oil, wine, flesh, meat, and contact with a stranger. Mark how rigorous and precise these errorists were in their outward observances. They were like the Pharisees of old, who cared not for the weightier matters of the Law, but tithed mint and anise and cummin. They attributed an intrinsic value to things that were fleeting: "All which things perish in the using;" leaving no spiritual result: "For meat commendeth us not to God; for neither if we eat are we the better; neither if we eat not, are we the worse". (1Co_8:8) Our Lord himself said it was not that which "entereth the mouth which defileth a man ". (Mat_15:16, Mat_15:17)

(3) A ritualistic religion is always marked by "the precepts and doctrines of men." Many of the Jewish ordinances were handed down by tradition and had no warrant in the written Word of God. Therefore our Lord said, "They teach for doctrines the commandments of men". (Mat_15:9)

II THE PRETENTIOUS WORTHLESSNESS OF THIS ASCETIC RITUALISM. "Which things, indeed, have a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and severity to the body, but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

1. Its reputation for wisdom. It had a show of wisdom without the reality, for it affected an air of extreme piety, of profound regard for God, and of deep knowledge in Divine things. All its ritualistic observances would be recommended by the plea that they tended to promote piety. The repute of wisdom was manifested in three things.

(1) Will worship, or service beyond what God requires in a word, superstition. This is the origin of penances and pilgrimages and festivals in Romanism. They are supposed to promote piety, but they have "a mere show of wisdom." They charge God with folly, as if be did not know what was most conducive to piety, and they involve a tacit claim to amend God"s ordinances. But God loves obedience better than sacrifice, (1Sa_15:22) and may well ask such ritualists, "Who hath required this at your hands?". (Isa_1:12) Will worship has been the great corrupter of pure religion.

(2) Humility. It is a studied and affected humility, not resting on a basis of faith and love, but consciously cultivated, and therefore not inconsistent with spiritual pride. "Pride may be pampered while the flesh grows lean.

(3) Severity to the body.

(a) There seems a show of wisdom in this habit, because an apostle found it wise "to keep his body under", (1Co_9:27) and the Colossian ascetics might have pleaded that they could thus enhance their spiritual insight.

(b) But such severity to the body is expressly condemned.

(a) Religion belongs to the body as well as the soul. The body, "so fearfully and wonderfully made," becomes "a temple of the Holy Ghost". (1Co_6:19) Its members are to be "yielded as instruments of righteousness unto God". (Rom_6:13) We are to offer our bodies as "living sacrifices," not dead or mutilated or maimed sacrifices. There is, therefore, nothing religious in whipping the body, like the Flagellants, or in denying it necessary food, or in arraying it in dirty or ragged clothing. "The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit," not a macerated body. We must keep up our bodily vigour for the discharge of the duties of life, so that the body may serve the Spirit.

(b) There may be a corrupt heart under an ascetic habit of body. Spiritual pride may dwell there in power.

2. Its failure to accomplish its chief end. "But are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

(1) This ascetic rigour is designed as a check upon sensual indulgence. There seems "a show of wisdom" in such a method.

(2) But it is no check to such self indulgence, as the history of asceticism proves. The monastic life, while it seemed hostile to self indulgence, made way, as by a sort of back door, to all sorts of sensual extravagance. T.C.

Vers. 20-23.

The Christian"s exemption from bondage to outwardness.

rudiments of the world," of which our text speaks, are, according to Bishop Lightfoot, "the rudimentary, elementary, ordinances and discipline of the mundane sphere;" or, according to Conybeare, "the childish lessons of outward firings." Taking the two renderings together, does it not seem that Paul is rather speaking of the spirit of outward things, and not of outward things themselves the spirit of outwardness as opposed to that of inwardness? And if so, is it not suggested here

I THAT THE CHRISTIAN IS EXEMPT FROM BONDAGE TO OUTWARDNESS? He is not ordinance ridden. What ordinances does Paul primarily speak of? Mingled and interfused Judaic, Gnostic, Essene, and Pharisaic. Paul quotes the words of some of their prescriptive limitations about wine, oil, meat, etc. And also he shows what embargo that spirit of outwardness placed on intercourse with persons who were

(1) ceremonially unclean,

(2) religiously inferior,

(3) nationally alien.

He adduces three reasons against being bound in the bondage of ordinances and regulations concerning such outward things.

1. That such things themselves are transient and fleeting. "The fashion of the world passeth away," he says in another place; and here, "which all are to perish with the using." They who guide their course by such things are as mariners who would direct their voyage rather by the clouds than by the stars.

2. That the virtues that are cultivated in care for such are artificial virtues. They engender

1. vanity,

2. arbitrariness,

3. false humility,

because voluntary and affected.

3. That such bondage fails in its object. "Not in any honour.

II THAT IN CHRIST"S DEATH IS THE POWER AND PATTERN OF EXEMPTION FROM SUCH OUTWARDNESS? Paul is accustomed to dwell on the Christian"s complete identification with Christ: "crucified," "buried," "risen," with him. Here it is identification with Jesus in his death. "Make thou, O Christ, a dying of my life." This first and mainly describes a dying to sin, here a dying to the dominion of outwardness. It is the paradox of Christian experience, "I am truly alive because I am dead." About this insensibility to the dominion of the external, this "death to outwardness," Paul hero teaches:

1. Christ"s death is the power by which man dies to merely outward rule and regulation. Through meditation, sympathy, fellowship, faith in the death of Christ, not only is the soul fired with hatred to sin which slew him, and with the love of God who could love thus, but of the hollowness of all formality and the coldness of all legality in the presence of such motives.

2. Christ"s death is the pattern of such exemption from bondage to the outward. The unresponsiveness of his dead body on the cross is an imago of the soul that through faith in him is dead to the world. That independence to the external is

1. complete, and

2. gradually obtained.

Let no man think that sudden, in a minute, All is accomplished and the work is done; Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it, Scarce were it ended with flay setting sun.

U.R.T.

Vers. 20-23.

The worthlessness of unauthorized ceremonialism.

The apostle here reverts to the ethical errors of the false teachers. Combining his teaching here and elsewhere respecting what he calls "the rudiments of the world," we learn the following truths:

I "THE RUDIMENTS OF THE WORLD" WERE USEFUL IN THEIR OWN TIME AND PLACE. The difficult expression, "rudiments of the world," seems to mean elementary teaching on the religious life which was no part of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It was not necessarily opposed to Christianity; for it included much of the Mosaic legislation under which the Jews were treated as children and pupils. (Gal_4:3) These rudimentary lessons were both disciplinary and typical. Paul respected the prejudices of Jews and of Jewish converts in their favour. (Act_16:3 Act_21:23-26) He allowed tender consciences to be bound by such rudiments as were not either of Jewish or Christian obligation. (Rom_14:2, Rom_14:3, Rom_14:14) So in the present day, among heathens just emerging from darkness but not yet "risen with Christ," certain elementary precepts and restrictions may be valuable as temporary educational expedients. And more stringent rules of Church discipline than the New Testament enforces may be expedient for a time in the training of converts from heathenism who have just come out from a worse than Egyptian bondage. (Illustrate from Exo_23:13, and similar requirements in Polynesia or other mission fields.)

II THE CHRISTIAN IS EMANCIPATED FROM BONDAGE TO THESE RUDIMENTS. "If ye died with Christ," etc. "This death has many aspects in St. Paul"s teaching. It is not only a dying with Christ, (2Ti_2:11) but it is also a dying to or from something. This is sometimes represented as sin; (Rom_6:2) sometimes as self; sometimes as the Law (Rom_7:6; Gal_2:19) sometimes still more widely as the world," as here and in Col_3:3. Our Lord, by his teaching and example, set his disciples free from the traditions of men (Mat_12:1-13 Mat_15:1-9) and from some of the ceremonial laws of Moses (Mar_7:14-19, "This he said making all meats clean;". (Act_10:15) By his death as the Sacrifice he fulfilled all that was typical in the ceremonial Law, so that by union with him "we have been discharged from the Law". (Rom_7:6) By his power as the risen Saviour, the supreme Head and Lawgiver of his Church, he replaces the precepts of Moses by his "I say unto you." He thus introduces all believers into a new sphere of life and liberty. (Heb_12:18-25) "We experience what Christ can do for us apart from "the rudiments of the world," and therefore need not go back to them. Having pardon, peace, purity, through the death and resurrection of Christ, it would be as unreasonable to seek those blessings in rudiments, as it would be for a cultured literary man to be constantly practising in elementary reading and spelling books. To "subject ourselves" to such restrictions would be as though a slave on the free soil of Britain should still crouch before his old master. (Gal_5:1)

III THESE RUDIMENTS HAVE NO POWER TO PROMOTE THE OBJECT FOR WHICH THEY ARE RECOMMENDED. (Ver. 23.) So far as they were Mosaic they had no longer the value which belongs to even the most "positive" precepts as a test of obedience. In the Christian Church even the laws of Moses are merely "the precepts of men;" Jesus only is Lord. The rudiments respecting fasting, etc., which originated in asceticism, never bad any spiritual value, but were for the most past the result of fundamental error. (1Ti_4:1-5) Self denial for our own good or that of others is commended by Paul; (1Co_8:13 1Co_9:27) but the asceticism of Colossae which was enforced on Christian converts is condemned as fostering pride and powerless to suppress sin.

may be pampered while the flesh grows lean" (Wordsworth). Thus the axe is laid at the root of those unscriptural austerities which are glorified in the Church of Rome; e.g. even the saintly Pascal "wore beneath his clothes a girdle of iron with sharp points affixed to it, and when he found his mind disposed to wander from religious subjects or take delight in things around him, he struck the girdle with his elbow and forced the points into his side." Men notorious for filth have been canonized (for an illustration, see Eadie on Colossians, p. 211). How absurd to think that hair shirts and "thongs and whip cord are means of grace"! But as Dr. South has said, "The truth is, if men"s religion lies no deeper than their skin, it is possible they may scourge themselves into very great improvements." Occasional fasts may be of value, but a religion of asceticism is "a libel upon Providence, a surly and superstitious refusal of Divine benignity." The safeguard against such errors is a clear view of our salvation by Christ, our union with him, our submission to him, and our fulness in him. E.S.P.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Col_2:20. Dead … from the rudiments of the world.—Such as are given in Col_2:21. Subject to ordinances.—Why do you consent to receive these “burdens grievous to be borne”?

Col_2:21. Touch not; taste not; handle not.—“These three prohibitions apply probably

(1) to marriage,

(2) to the use of certain foods,

(3) to contact with material objects” (Godet). The rigour of the prohibitions is greatest in the last of the three. Note the change in R.V: “handle not, nor taste, nor TOUCH.”

Col_2:23. Neglecting of the body.—A.V. margin, “punishing or not sparing.” R.V. text, “severity to the body.” No doubt the apostle felt that on this subject he would need to tread cautiously, for he himself had beaten his body into subjection (1Co_9:27). Not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.—The R.V. gives light on the obscurity: “not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.” This is the evidence which for ever disqualifies asceticism in its many forms. We can understand how a Lenten fast or a hair-shirt may make a man irritable. If they are of any value in themselves, monastic annals need revision and expurgation, and the Christian finds himself far outdone by the dervish.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Col_2:20-23

The Ceremonial in Religion Transitory and Unsatisfying.

The apostle returns again to the question of outward observances. He saw the extreme danger with which the Colossians were threatened from that source, and before turning to other matters in his epistle he lifts up a warning voice as for the last time.

I. That the ceremonial in religion is simply elementary.—“The rudiments of the world” (Col_2:20). The ceremonial in religion is the alphabetical stage, suited only to the world’s infancy and to the crudest condition in human development. It is the childish period which, with all its toys and pictures and gewgaws, is put away when spiritual manhood is attained. It is in its nature transitory and imperfect. It conveys knowledge but in part; and when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part is done away.

II. The ceremonial in religion is unworthy the submission of the Christian believer.—

1. The believer is liberated from the slavery of the ceremonial. He is “dead with Christ” (Col_2:20). As Christ by His death cancelled the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and vanquished Satan and all his hosts, so the believer, united with Christ in His death, shares in the triumph of that death. He is free; he rises into a new life, not under the tyranny of the old law, with its demands and penalties, but in allegiance to Christ. He has passed into another sphere of existence. Worldly ordinances have ceased to have any value for him, because his worldly life is ended. They belong to the realm of the transitory and perishable; he has been translated into the realm of the free and the eternal.

2. To return to the ceremonial is to forfeit Christian liberty.—“Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” (Col_2:20). It is to ignore all progress, to impugn the reality of the change wrought in the soul by spiritual baptism, to close one’s eyes to the altered state of things into which he has been introduced, and to submit again to the galling yoke of legal observances and human traditions which never had divine sanction and from which he had been emancipated. It is a denial of his Christianity to subject himself again to their tyranny—to return once more to the dominion of the world. It is giving up the substance for the shadow. It is a deliberate self-degradation to the most abject and pitiable slavery. It is supposed that many of the ascetic practices of the false teachers at Colossæ were borrowed from the Pythagoreans. Their philosophy was all on the side of prohibitions, abstinences, a forced celibacy, the unlawfulness of animal food, the possibility of attaining perfection by neglecting the body, under the delusion that evil resided in matter.

III. The ceremonial in religion, in its main features, is universally the same.—

1. It is the same in its dictatorial prohibitions. “Touch not; taste not; handle not” (Col_2:21). Such is the arrogant language of a narrow, bigoted, and imperious superstition. It is an instruction to observe the gradual and insidious manner in which it obtains the mastery over the human conscience. Touch not: it prohibits even a light partaking of some meat or drink. Taste not: the prohibition is extended, so that it becomes a crime even to taste, though refusing to eat. Handle not: to come in contact with the forbidden object, even in the handling, is a dreadful sacrilege. So is it ever with the clamorous demands of a proud, assumptious ritualism. There is no end to the unauthorised prohibitions with which it seeks to bind the conscience.

2. It is the same in its undue exaltation of the external and the transitory.—“Which all are to perish with the using” (Col_2:22). The very eating and drinking of them destroys them. They are consumed in the using; and in order to nourish us they themselves perish—a plain proof that all the benefit we receive from them respects only our physical and mortal life. What folly is it to insist on a scrupulous avoidance or observance of externals in order to salvation! You claim an affinity with the eternal, and it is unworthy of your glorious destiny to be absorbed with the worship of the perishable.

3. It is the same in its human origin.—“After the commandments and doctrines of men” (Col_2:22). A commandment is a precept; a doctrine is the principle or truth on which it is based. The one furnishes a direction, the other the reason on which the direction rests. The ceremonial in religion is an accumulation of the commandments and doctrines of men. Depending on human authority, it has no value in itself; and when it is made obligatory in order to human salvation, it is an impious insult to Christ and an intolerable servitude to man. The commandments of men, having no solid doctrines to rest upon, are transitory and illusory.

IV. The ceremonial in religion can never satisfy the many-sided wants of humanity.—

1. It pretends to a wisdom it does not possess.

(1) In self-imposed methods of worship. “Which things have, indeed, a show of wisdom in will-worship” (Col_2:23). It insists on certain distinctions of meats and drinks; on abstinence from this or that kind of food; on certain ritual observances as necessary in order to render due homage to God. The enthusiast for the ceremonial argues that he who only does what God positively demands does only what is common; but he who goes beyond, and submits to additional observances, reaches a higher degree of saintliness. This is will-worship, which has peculiar charms for the corrupt tendencies of our depraved nature. The works of supererogation it invents are pleasanter than the holy, humble, adoring worship of God through the blood of the cross.

(2) In the affectation of a spurious humility. “In humility” (Col_2:23). It is a pretence of wisdom to renounce all worldly splendour and profess to live in poverty and seclusion. But at the root of this profession the most pernicious pride may lurk. A self-conscious and dramatically acted humility is the most degrading and detestable.

(3) In an unjustifiable indifference to bodily wants. “And neglecting of the body” (Col_2:23). The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and is to be honoured and cherished, and all its just wants satisfied, in order that its best powers may be employed in the service of God. But the abuse of the body in starvation, painful macerations, and squalid neglect is a folly and a sin.

2. It is of no value in preventing the indulgence of the flesh.—“Not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh” (Col_2:23). The radical error of the ascetic lies in his belief that evil resides in matter. Not the body, but the soul, is the source of sin: the body is depraved because the soul is depraved. Sin exists as a thought and conception of the heart before it exists as an act of the flesh. No amount of outward flagellation, or of abstinence from needful food, will satisfy the natural wants of the body, or destroy its sinful tendencies. The attempt to be virtuous by afflicting the body is like battering the outwork while the main citadel remains untouched. The outward can never satisfy the complicated needs of man’s nature. First bring the soul into a right relation to God, and, with the aid of divine grace, it will control all the outgoings of the flesh.

Lessons.—

1. The ceremonial has its place in religion, and therefore should not be despised.

2. The believer is raised above the power of the ceremonial in religion, and therefore should not be subject to it.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Col_2:20. Principles above Rules; or, Wheat is better than Bread.—Bread may feed us for the moment, but when once eaten it is gone for ever. Wheat on the contrary will bear seed, increase, and multiply. Every rule is taken from a principle, as a loaf of bread is made from wheat. It is right to enforce the principle rather than the action, because a good principle is sure of producing good actions. Seeming goodness is not better than religion; precept is not better than principle.—A. W. Hare.

Col_2:21-23. Asceticism—

I. Multiplies unnecessary restrictions.

II. Is a species of self-worship.

III. Is unjust to the body.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 2 Part 7

TWO FINAL TESTS OF THE FALSE TEACHING

Col_2:20-23 (R.V.)

The polemical part of the Epistle is now coming to an end. We pass in the next chapter, after a transitional paragraph, to simple moral precepts which, with personal details, fill up the remainder of the letter. The antagonist errors appear for the last time in the words which we have now to consider. In these the Apostle seems to gather up all his strength to strike two straight, crashing, final blows, which pulverise and annihilate the theoretical positions and practical precepts of the heretical teachers. First, he puts in the form of an unanswerable demand for the reason for their teachings, their radical inconsistency with the Christians death with Christ, which is the very secret of his life. Then, by a contemptuous concession of their apparent value to people who will not look an inch below the surface, he makes more emphatic their final condemnation as worthless-less than nothing and vanity-for the suppression of "the flesh"- the only aim of all moral and religious discipline. So we have here two great tests by their conformity to which we may try all teachings which assume to regulate life, and all Christian teaching about the place and necessity for ritual and outward prescriptions of conduct. "Ye are dead with Christ." All must fit in with that great fact. The restraint and conquest of "the flesh" is the purpose of all religion and of all moral teaching-our systems must do that or they are naught, however fascinating they may be.

I. We have then to consider the great fact of the Christians death with Christ, and to apply it as a touchstone.

The language of the Apostle points to a definite time when the Colossian Christians "died" with Christ. That carries us back to former words in the chapter, where, as we found, the period of their baptism, considered as the symbol and profession of their conversion, was regarded as the time of their burial. They died with Christ when they clave with penitent trust to the truth that Christ died for them. When a man unites himself by faith to the dying Christ as his Peace, Pardon, and Saviour, then he too in a very real sense dies with Jesus.

That thought that every Christian is dead with Christ runs through the whole of Pauls teaching. It is no mere piece of mysticism on his tips, though it has often become so, when divorced from morality, as it has been by some Christian teachers. It is no mere piece of rhetoric, though it has often become so, when men have lost the true thought of what Christs death is for the world. But to Paul the cross of Christ was, first and foremost, the altar of sacrifice on which the oblation had been offered that took away all his guilt and sin; and then, because it was that, it became the law of his own life, and the power that assimilated him to his Lord.

The plain English of it all is, that when a man becomes a Christian by putting his trust in Christ Who died, as the ground of his acceptance and salvation, such a change takes place upon his whole nature and relationship to externals as is fairly comparable to a death.

The same illustration is frequent in ordinary speech. What do we mean when we talk of an old man being dead to youthful passions or follies or ambitions? We mean that they have ceased to interest him, that he is separated from them and insensible to them. Death is the separator. What an awful gulf there is between that fixed white face beneath the sheet and all the things about which the man was so eager an hour ago! How impossible for any cries of love to pass the chasm! "His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not." The "business" which filled his thoughts crumbles to pieces, and he cares not. Nothing reaches him or interests him any more. So, if we have got hold of Christ as our Saviour, and have found in His cross the anchor of souls, that experience will deaden us to all which was our life, and the measure in which we are joined to Jesus by our faith in His great sacrifice, will be the measure in which we are detached from our former selves, and from old objects of interest and pursuit. The change may either be called dying with Christ, or rising with Him. The one phrase takes hold of it at an earlier stage than the other; the one puts stress on our ceasing, to be what we were, the other on our beginning to be what we were not. So our text is followed by a paragraph corresponding in form and substance, and beginning, "If ye then be risen with Christ," as this begins, "If ye died with Christ!"

Such detachment from externals and separation from a former self is not unknown in ordinary life. Strong emotion of any kind makes us insensible to things around, and even to physical pain. Many a man with the excitement of the battlefield boiling in his brain, "receives but recks not of a wound." Absorption of thought and interest leads to what is called "absence of mind," where the surroundings are entirely unfelt, as in the case of the saint who rode all day on the banks of the Swiss lake, plunged in theological converse, and at evening asked where the lake was, though its waves had been rippling for twenty miles at his mules feet. Higher tastes drive out lower ones. as some great stream turned into a new channel will sweep it clear of mud and rubbish. So, if we are joined to Christ, He will fill our souls with strong emotions and interests which will deaden our sensitiveness to things around us, and will inspire new loves, tastes, and desires, which will make us indifferent to much that we used to be eager about, and hostile to much that we once cherished.

To what shall we die if we are Christians? The Apostle answers that question in various ways, which we may profitably group together. "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin". {Rom_6:11} "He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves". {2Co_5:14-15} "Ye are become dead to the law." {Rom_7:6} By the cross of Christ, "the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world." So then, to the whole mass of outward material things, all this present order which surrounds us, to the unrenounced self which has ruled us so long, and to the sin which results from the appeals of outward things to that evil self-to these, and to the mere outward letter of a commandment which is impotent to enforce its own behests or deliver self from the snares of the world and the burden of sin, we cease to belong in the measure in which we are Christs. The separation is not complete; but, if we are Christians at all, it is begun, and henceforward our life is to be a "dying daily." It must either be a dying life or a living death. We shall still belong in our outward being-and, alas! far too much in heart also-to the world and self and sin-but, if we are Christians at all, there will be a real separation from these in the inmost heart of our hearts, and the germ of entire deliverance from them all will be in us.

This day needs that truth to be strongly urged. The whole meaning of the death of Christ is not reached when it is regarded as the great propitiation for our sins. Is it the pattern for our lives? Has it drawn us away from our love of the world, from our sinful self, from the temptations to sin, from cowering before duties which we hate but dare not neglect? Has it changed the current of our lives, and lifted us into a new region where we find new interests, loves, and aims, before which the twinkling lights, which once were stars to us, pale their ineffectual fires? If so, then, just in as much as it is so, and not one hairs breadth the more, may we call ourselves Christians. If not, it is of no use for us to talk about looking to the cross as the source of our salvation. Such a look, if it be true and genuine, will certainly change all a mans tastes, habits, aspirations, and relationships. If we know nothing of dying with Christ, it is to be feared we know as little of Christs dying for us.

This great fact of the Christians death with Christ comes into view here mainly as pointing the contradiction between the Christians position, and his subjection to the prescriptions and prohibitions of a religion which consists chiefly in petty rules about conduct. We are "dead," says Paul, "to the rudiments of the world,"-a phrase which we have already heard in verse 8 {Col_2:8} of this chapter, where we found its meaning to be "precepts of an elementary character, fit for babes, not for men in Christ, and moving principally in the region of the material." It implies a condemnation of all such regulation religion on the two grounds, that it is an anachronism, seeking to perpetuate an earlier stage which has been left behind, and that it has to do with the outsides of things, with the material and visible only. To such rudiments we are dead with Christ. Then, queries Paul, with irresistible triumphant question-why, in the name of consistency, "do you subject yourself to ordinances" (of which we have already heard in Col_2:14) such as "handle not, nor taste, nor touch"? These three prohibitions are not Pauls, but are quoted by him as specimens of the kind of rules and regulations which he is protesting against. The ascetic teachers kept on vehemently reiterating their prohibitions, and as the correct rendering of the words shows, with a constantly increasing in tolerance. "Handle not" is a less rigid prohibition than "touch not." The first says, Do not lay hold of the last, Do not even touch with the tip of your finger. So asceticism, like many another tendency and habit, grows by indulgence, and demands abstinence ever more rigid and separation ever more complete. And the whole thing is out of date, and a misapprehension of the genius of Christianity. Mans work in religion is ever to confine it to the surface, to throw it outward and make it a mere round of things done and things abstained from. Christs work in religion is to drive it inwards, and to focus all its energy on "the hidden man of the heart," knowing that if that be right, the visible will come right. It is waste labour to try to stick figs on the prickles of a thorn bush-as it the tree, so will be the fruit. There are plenty of pedants and martinets in religion as well as on the parade ground. There must be so many buttons on the uniform, and the shoulder belts must be pipe clayed, and the rifles on the shoulders sloped at just such an angle - and then all will be right. Perhaps so. Disciplined courage is better thancourage undisciplined. But there is much danger of all the attention being given to drill, and then, when the parade ground is exchanged for the battlefield, disaster comes because there is plenty of etiquette and no dash.

Mens lives are pestered out of them by a religion which tries to tie them down with as many tiny threads as those with which the Liliputians fastened down Gulliver. But Christianity in its true and highest forms is not a religion of prescriptions, but of principles. It does not keep perpetually dinning a set of petty commandments and prohibitions into our ears. Its language is not a continual "Do this, forbear from that,"-but "Love, and thou fulfillest the law." It works from the centre outwards to the circumference; first making clean the inside of the platter, and so ensuring that the outside shall be clean also. The error with which Paul fought, and which perpetually crops up anew, having its roots deep in human nature, begins with the circumference and wastes effort in burnishing the outside.

The parenthesis which follows in the text, "all which things are to perish with the using," contains an incidental remark intended to show the mistake of attaching such importance to regulations about diet and the like, from the consideration of the perishableness of these meats and drinks about which so much was said by the false teachers. "They are all destined for corruption, for physical decomposition-in the very act of consumption." You cannot use them without using them up. They are destroyed in the very moment of being used. Is it fitting for men who have died with Christ to this fleeting world, to make so much of its perishable things?

May we not widen this thought beyond its specific application here, and say that death with Christ to the world should deliver us from the temptation of making much of the things which perish with the using, whether that temptation is presented in the form of attaching exaggerated religious importance to ascetic abstinence from them or in that of exaggerated regard and unbridled use of them? Asceticism and Sybaritic luxury have in common an overestimate of the importance of the material things. The one is the other turned inside out. Dives in his purple and fine linen, and the ascetic in his hair shirt, both make too much of "what they shall put on." The one with his feasts and the other with his fasts both think too much of what they shall eat and drink. A man who lives on high with his Lord puts all these things in their right place. There are things which do not perish with the using, but grow with use, like the five loaves in Christs hands. Truth, love, holiness, all Christlike graces and virtues increase with exercise, and the more we feed on the bread which comes down from heaven, the more shall we have for our own nourishment and for our brothers need. There is a treasure which faileth not, bags which wax not old, the durable riches and undecaying possessions of the soul that lives on Christ and grows like Him. These let us seek after; for if our religion be worth anything at all, it should carry us past all the fleeting wealth of earth straight into the heart of things, and give us for our portion that God whom we can never exhaust, nor outgrow, but possess the more as we use His sweetness for the solace, and His all-sufficient Being for the good, of our souls.

The final inconsistency between the Christian position and the practical errors in question is glanced at in the words "after the commandments and doctrines of men," which refer, of course, to the ordinances of which Paul is speaking. The expression is a quotation from Isaiahs denunciation {Isa_29:13} of the Pharisees of his day, and as used here seems to suggest that our Lords great discourse on the worthlessness of the Jewish punctilios about meats and drinks was in the Apostles mind, since the same words of Isaiah occur there in a similar connection. It is not fitting that we, who are withdrawn from dependence on the outward visible order of things by our union with Christ in His death, should be under the authority of men. Here is the true democracy of the Christian society. "Ye were redeemed with a price. Be not the servants of men." Our union to Jesus Christ is a union of absolute authority and utter submission. We all have access to the one source of illumination, and we are bound to take our orders from the one Master. The protest against the imposition of human authority on the Christian soul is made not in the interests of self-will, but from reverence to the only voice that has the right to give autocratic commands and to receive unquestioning obedience. We are free in proportion as we are dead to the world with Christ. We are free from men not that we may please ourselves, but that we may please Him.

"Hold your peace, I want to hear what my Master has to command me," is the language of the Christian freedman, who is free that he may serve, and because he serves.

II. We have to consider one great purpose of all teaching and external worship, by its power in attaining which any system is to be tried.

"Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and severity to the body, but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh." Here is the conclusion of the whole matter, the parting summary of the indictment against the whole irritating tangle of restrictions and prescriptions. From a moral point of view it is worthless, as having no coercive power over "the flesh." Therein lies its conclusive condemnation, for if religious observances do not help a man to subdue his sinful self, what, in the name of common sense, is the use of them? The Apostle knows very well that the system which he was opposing had much which commended it to people, especially to those who did not look very deep. It had a "show of wisdom" very fascinating on a superficial glance, and that in three points, all of which caught the vulgar eye, and all of which turned into the opposite on closer examination.

It had the look of being exceeding devotion and zealous worship. These teachers with their abundant forms impose upon the popular imagination, as if they were altogether given up to devout contemplation and prayer. But if one looks a little more closely at them, one sees that their devotion is the indulgence of their own will and not surrender to Gods. They are not worshipping Him as He has appointed, but as they have themselves chosen, and as they are rendering services which He has not required, they are in a very true sense worshipping their own wills, and not God at all. By "will worship" seems to be meant self-imposed forms of religious service which are the outcome not of obedience, nor of the instincts of a devout heart, but of a mans own will. And the Apostle implies that such supererogatory and volunteered worship is no worship. Whether offered in a cathedral or a barn, whether the worshipper wear a cope or a fustian jacket, such service is not accepted. A prayer which is but the expression of the worshippers own will, instead of being "not my will but Thine be done," reaches no higher than the lips that utter it. If we are subtly and half unconsciously obeying self even while we seem to be bowing before God; if we are seeming to pray, and are all the while burning incense to ourselves instead of being drawn out of ourselves by the beauty and the glory of the God towards whom our spirits yearn, then our devotion is a mask, and our prayers will be dispersed in empty air.

The deceptive appearance of wisdom in these teachers and their doctrines is further manifest in the humility which felt so profoundly the gulf between man and God that it was fain to fill the void with its fantastic creations of angel mediators. Humility is a good thing, and it looked very humble to say, We cannot suppose that such insignificant flesh-encompassed creatures as we can come into contact and fellowship with God; but it was a great deal more humble to take God at His word, and to let Him lay down the possibilities and conditions of intercourse, and to tread the way of approach to Him which He has appointed. If a great king were to say to all the beggars and ragged losels of his capital, Come to the palace tomorrow; which would be the humbler, he who went, rags and leprosy and all, or he who hung back because he was so keenly conscious of his squalor? God says to men, "Come to My arms through My Son. Never mind the dirt, come." Which is the humbler: he who takes God at His word, and runs to hide his face on his Fathers breast, having access to Him through Christ the Way, or he who will not venture near till he has found some other mediators besides Christ? A humility so profound that it cannot think Gods promise and Christs mediation enough for it, has gone so far West that it has reached the East, and from humility has become pride.

Further, this system has a show of wisdom in "severity to the body." Any asceticism, is a great deal more to mens taste than abandoning self. They will rather stick hooks in their backs and do the "swinging poojah," than give up their sins or yield up their wills. It is easier to travel the whole distance from Cape Comorin to the shrine of Juggernaut, measuring every foot of it by the body laid prostrate in the dust, than to surrender the heart to the love of God. In the same manner the milder forms of putting oneself to pain, hair shirts, scourgings, abstinence from pleasant things with the notion that thereby merit is acquired, or sin atoned for, have a deep root in human nature, and hence "a show of wisdom." It is strange, and yet not strange, that people should think that, somehow or other, they recommend themselves to God by making themselves uncomfortable, but so it is that religion presents itself to many minds mainly as a system of restrictions and injunctions which forbids the agreeable and commands the unpleasant. So does our poor human nature vulgarise and travesty Christs solemn command to deny ourselves and take up our cross after Him.

The conclusive condemnation of all the crowd of punctilious restrictions of which the Apostle has been speaking lies in the fact that, however they may correspond to mens mistaken notions, and so seem to be the dictate of wisdom, they "are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh." This is one great end of all moral and spiritual discipline, and if practical regulations do not tend to secure it, they are worthless.

Of course by "flesh" here we are to understand, as usually in the Pauline Epistles, not merely the body, but the whole unregenerate personality, the entire unrenewed self that thinks and feels and wills and desires apart from God. To indulge and satisfy it is to die, to slay and suppress it is to live. All these "ordinances" with which the heretical teachers were pestering the Colossians have no power, Paul thinks, to keep that self down, and therefore they seem to him so much rubbish. He thus lifts the whole question up to a higher level and implies a standard for judging much formal outward Christianity which would make very short work of it.

A man may be keeping the whole round of them and seven devils may be in his heart. They distinctly tend to foster some of the "works of the flesh," such as self-righteousness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, and they as distinctly altogether fail to subdue any of them. A man may stand on a pillar like Simeon Stylites for years, and be none the better. Historically the ascetic tendency has not been associated with the highest types of real saintliness except by accident, and has never been their productive cause. The bones rot as surely inside the sepulchre though the whitewash on its dome be ever so thick.

So the world and the flesh are very willing that Christianity should shrivel into a religion of prohibitions and ceremonials, because all manner of vices and meannesses may thrive and breed under these, like scorpions under stones. There is only one thing that will put the collar on the neck of the animal within us, and that is the power of the indwelling Christ. The evil that is in us all is too strong for every other fetter. Its cry to all these "commandments and ordinances of men" is, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?" Not in obedience to such, but in the reception into our spirits of His own life, is our power of victory over self. "This I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh."

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

2:20 You have died with Christ: Christ’s death on the cross marked his victory over the spiritual powers (2:15), so we who participate in his death have likewise been set free from the evil spiritual powers of this world (see 2:8).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Col 2:20. Εἰ, if) The inference, begun at Col 2:16, is continued; and at ch. Col 3:1, a new inference follows.—ἀπεθάνετε ἀπὸ, ye are dead from) An abbreviated expression, i.e. dead, and so set free from the elements, etc.—ἀπὸ τῶν στοιχείων, from the elements) Col 2:8.—δογματίζεσθε) in the Middle voice, you receive (take up) dogmas, ordinances.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Col_2:20 f. After these warnings, Col_2:16-19, which were intended to secure his readers against the seduction threatening them, the apostle now returns for the same purpose once more to the two main foundations of the Christian life, to the fellowship with Christ in death (Col_2:20), and fellowship with Him also in resurrection (Col_3:1). His aim is to show, in connection with the former, the groundlessness and perversity of the heretical prohibitions of meats (Col_2:20-23), and to attach to the latterto the fellowship of resurrectionthe essence of Christian morality in whole and in detail, and there with the paraenetic portion of the Epistle (Col_3:1 to Col_4:6), the tenor of which thereby receives the character of the holiest moral necessity.

εἰ ἀπεθάνετε κ.τ.λ.] the legal abstinence required by the false teachers (see below) stands in contradiction with the fact, that the readers at their conversion had entered into the fellowship of the death of Christ, and thereby had become loosed from the στοιχεία τοῦ κόσμου (see on Col_2:8), i.e. from the ritual religious elements of non-Christian humanity, among which the legal prohibition of meats and the traditional regulations founded thereon are included. How far the man who has died with Christ has passed out of connection with these elementary things, is taught by Col_2:14, according to which, through the death of Christ, the law as to its debt-obligation has been abolished. Consequently, in the case of those who have died with Christ, the law, and everything belonging to the same category with it, have no further claim to urge, since Christ has allowed the curse of the law to be accomplished on Himself, and this has also taken place in believers in virtue of their fellowship of death with Him, whereby the binding relation of debt which had hitherto subsisted for them has ceased. Comp. Gal_2:19; Gal_4:3; Gal_4:9; Rom_7:4, et al.

ἀποθνήσκειν, with ἀπό, meaning to die away from something, moriendo liberari a (Porphyr. de abstin. ab esu anim. i. 41), is only met with here in the N. T.; elsewhere it is used with the dative, as in Gal_2:19, Rom_6:2, whereby the same thing is otherwise conceived in point of form. It is, moreover, to be observed, that Christ Himself also is by death released from the στοιχεία, since He was made under the law, and, although sinless, was destined to take upon Himself the curse of it; hence it was only by His death in obedience to the Father (Php_2:8; Rom_5:19), that He became released from this relation. Comp. on Gal_4:4. Huther erroneously denies that such an ἀποθανεῖν can be predicated of Christ, and therefore assumes (comp. Schenkel and Dalmer) the brachylogy: if, by your dying with Christ, ye are dead from the στοιχεία τοῦ κοσμοῦ.

τί ὡς ζῶντες κ.τ.λ.] why are ye, as though ye were still alive in the world, commanded: Touch not, etc. Such commands are adapted to those who are not, like you, dead, etc. As ἀποθανόντες σὺν Χ. ἀπὸ τ. στοιχ. τ. κόσμ., ye are no longer alive in the domain of the non-Christian κόσμος, but are removed from that sphere of life (belonging to the heavenly πολίτευμα, Php_3:20). The word δογματίζειν, only found here in the N. T., but frequently in the LXX. and Apocrypha, and in the Fathers and decrees of Councils (see Suicer, Thes. I. p. 935), means nothing more than to decree (Diod. Sic. iv. 83; Diog. L. iii. 51; Anth. Pal. ix. 576. 4; Arrian. Epict, iii. 7; Est_3:9; Esther 3 Esdr. 6:34; 2Ma_10:8; 2Ma_15:36; 3Ma_4:11), and δογματίζεσθε is passive: why are ye prescribed to, why do men make decrees for you (vobis)? so that it is not a reproach (the censure conveyed by the expression affects rather the false teachers), but a warning to those readers (comp. Col_2:16; Col_2:18) who were not yet led away (Col_1:4, Col_2:5), and who ought not to yield any compliance to so absurd a demand. That the readers are the passive subject, is quite according to rule, since the active has the dative along with it, δογματίζειν τινι (2Ma_10:8); comp. also Hofmann and Beza. The usual rendering takes δογματ. as middle, and that either as: why do ye allow commands to be laid down for you (Huther), rules to be imposed upon you, (de Wette), yourselves to be entangled with rules (Luther)? and such like;[130] or even: why do ye make rules for yourselves (Ewald)? comp. Vulgate: decernitis. This, however, would involve a censure of the readers, and ὡς ζῶντες ἐν κόσμῳ would express the unsuitableness of their conduct with their Christian standinga reproach, which would be altogether out of harmony with the other contents of the Epistle. On the contrary, Ὡς ΖῶΝΤΕς ἘΝ Κ. indicates the erroneous aspect in which the Christian standing of the readers was regarded by the false teachers, who took up such an attitude towards them, as if they were not yet dead from the world, which nevertheless (comp. Col_2:11 f.) they are through their fellowship with Christ (Col_3:3; Gal_2:19 f.; 2Co_5:14 f.). The ὡς ζῶντες ἐν κόσμῳ, moreover, is entirely misunderstood by Bähr: as if one could at all attain to life and salvation through externals. Comp., on the contrary, the thought of the εἶναι ἐν τῇ σαρκί in Rom_7:5 and Gal_6:14. Observe, further, that this ΖῆΝ ἘΝ ΚΌΣΜῼ is not one and the same thing with εἷναι ὑπὸ τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου (Hofmann, by way of establishing his explanation of ΣΤΟΙΧΕῖΑ in the sense of the material things of the world); but the ζῆν ἐν κ. is the more general, to which the special εἶναι ὑπὸ τ. στοιχεῖα τ. κ. is subordinate. If the former is the case, the latter also takes place by way of consequence.

μὴ ἅψῃ κ.τ.λ.] a vivid concrete representation of the ΔΌΓΜΑΤΑ concerned, in a compendiaria mimesis (Flacius). The triple description brings out the urgency of the eager demand for abstinence, and the relation of the three prohibitions is such, that μηδέ both times means nor even; in the second instance, however, in the sense of ne quidem, so that the last point stands to the two former together in the relation of a climax: thou shalt not lay hold of, nor even taste, nor once touch! What was meant as object of this enjoined ἀπέχεσθαι (1Ti_4:3) the reader was aware, and its omission only renders the description more vivid and terse. Steigers view, that the object was suppressed by the false teachers themselves from fear and hypocrisy, is quite groundless. From the words themselves, however (γεύσῃ), and from the subsequent context (see Col_2:23), it is plain that the prohibitions concerned certain meats and drinks (comp. Col_2:16); and it is entirely arbitrary to mix up other things, as even de Wette does, making them refer also to sexual intercourse (θιγγάνειν γυναικός, Eur. Hipp. 1044, et al.; see Monck, ad Eur. Hipp. 14; Valckenaer, ad Phoen. 903), while others distinguish between ἅψῃ and ΘΊΓῌς in respect of their objects, e.g. Estius: the former refers to unclean objects, such as the garments of a menstruous woman, the latter to the buying and selling of unclean meats; Erasmus, Zanchius: the former concerns dead bodies, the latter sacred vessels and the like; Grotius: the former refers to meats, the latter to the vitandas feminas, to which Flatt and Dalmer, following older writers, make ἅψῃ refer (1Co_7:1). Others give other expositions still; Böhmer arbitrarily makes ΘΊΓῌς refer to the oil, which the Essenes and other theosophists regarded as a labes. That Paul in ἅψῃ and ΘΊΓ. had no definite object at all in view, is not even probable (in opposition to Huther), because γεύσῃ stands between them, and Col_2:23 points to abstinence from meats, and not at the same time to anything else.

Following the more forcible ἍΨῌ, lay hold of, the more subtle θίγῃς, touch, is in admirable keeping with the climax: the object was to be even ἄθικτον (Soph. O. C. 39). Comp. on the difference between the two words, Xen. Cyrop. i. 3. 5: ὅταν μὲν τοῦ ἄρτου ἅψῃ, εἰς οὐδὲν τὴν χεῖρα ἀποψώμενον (σὲ ὁρῶ), ὅταν δὲ τούτων (these dainty dishes) ΤΙΝῸς ΘΊΓῌς, ΕὐΘῪς ἈΠΟΚΑΘΑΊΡῌ ΤῊΝ ΧΕῖΡΑ ΕἸς ΤᾺ ΧΕΙΡΌΜΑΚΤΡΑ, also v. 1. 16. In an inverted climax, Eur. Bacch. 617: οὔτʼ ἔθιγεν οὔθʼ ἥψαθʼ ἡμῶν. See also Exo_19:12, where the LXX. delicately and aptly render נְגֹעַ בְּקָעֵהוּ, to touch the outer border of the mountain, by the free translation θίγειν τι αὐτοῦ, but then express the general הַנֹגֵעַ בָּהָר by the stronger ὁ ἁψάμενος τοῦ ὄρους. Hofmann erroneously holds that ἅπτομαι expresses rather the motion of the subject grasping at something, θιγγάνω rather his arriving at the object. In opposition to this fiction stands the testimony of all the passages in the Gospels (Mat_8:3; Mat_9:20; Joh_20:17, and many others), in which ἅπτεσθαι signifies the actual laying hold of, and, in Pauls writings, of 1Co_7:1, 2Co_6:17, as also the quite common Grecian usage in the sense of contrectare (attingere et inhaerere), and similarly the signification of the active to fasten to, to make to stick (Lobeck, ad Soph. Aj. 698; Duncan, Lex. Hom. ed. Rost, p. 150). The mere stretching out the hand towards something, in order to seize it, is never ἍΠΤΕΣΘΑΙ. Hofmann, moreover, in order to establish a climax of the three points, arbitrarily makes the subtle gloss upon ΓΕΎΣῌ, that this might even happen more unintentionally, and upon θίγῃς, that this might happen involuntarily.

Respecting the aorist ΘΙΓΕῖΝ (a present ΘΊΓΕΙΝ instead of ΘΙΓΓΆΝΕΙΝ can nowhere be accepted as certain), see Schaefer, ad Greg. Cor. p. 990, Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 804; Kühner, I. p. 833.

[130] Comp. Chrysostom: πῶς τοῖς στοιχείοις ὑπόκεισθε; similarly Theodoret, Beza; and recently, Bähr, Böhmer, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek, and others.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Col 2:20 . The Apostle, recalling them to the time of their conversion, points out how inconsistent with a death to the elemental spirits any submission to ordinances belonging to their sphere would be. The death of the believer with Christ is a death to his old relations, to sin, law, guilt, the world. It is a death which Christ has Himself undergone (Rom 6:10 ). Here it is specially their death to the angels, who had ruled their old life, and under whose charge the Law and its ceremonies especially stood. They had died with Christ to legalism, how absurd then for ordinances to be imposed upon them. εἰ ἀπεθάνετε σὺν Χριστῷ : “if, as is the case, you died in union with Christ”. The aorist points to the definite fact, which took place once for all. It was in union with Christ, for thus they were able to repeat Christ’s own experience. ἀπὸ τῶν στοιχείων τοῦ κόσμου . The use of ἀπὸ with ἀποθν . expresses more strongly than the dative (as in Rom 6:2 ) the completeness of the severance, and adds the idea of escape from the dominion of the personal powers. On στ . τ . κ . see note on Col 2:8 . ὡς ζῶντες ἐν κόσμῳ . For the death of the Christian with Christ includes his crucifixion to the world (Gal 6:14 ). The world is ruled by these angels; but Christians belong to the world to come ( cf. τ . μελλόντων , Col 2:17 ), which, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, has not been made subject to the angels. Since they were still living in the physical world κός . has evidently an ethical sense. δογματίζεσθε may be middle, “subject yourselves to ordinances,” or passive. Since Paul nowhere says that the readers had accepted the false teaching, the latter is better: “Why are ye prescribed to?” (Mey., Winer, Hofm., Findl., Haupt.) Alford also takes it as a passive, but thinks it implies a keener rebuke than the middle. The middle asserts rather that they had submitted, the passive need only imply, not their submission, but that their resistance might have been more energetic. If there is blame it seems to be slighter. The verb δογματ . is chosen with reference to τοῖς δόγμασιν in Col 2:14 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20–3:4. Transition to the detailed practical directions of the Epistle (Col 3:5 to Col 4:6). St Paul, first negatively (Col 2:20-23), and secondly positively (c. Col 3:1-4), describes in general terms the right attitude of the believer to Christ in his daily life. His life is not to be conducted on the principle urged by the false teachers, submission to rules (Col 2:20-23), but on that of directing his attention and will towards Christ in His risen and ascended state

(Col 2:20) If, as I said, you died with Christ, thus completely severing yourselves with Him from the rudimentary teaching of the world, why, as though still finding pleasure in the world, are you being placed under the power of rules, (Col 2:21) that, for instance, forbid even the very touching of certain foods, (Col 2:22) (Though foods as such—you will remember our Lord’s teaching—perish in their very use!) according to the ordinances and instructions of mere men? (Col 2:23) Rules such as have the credit of wisdom in self-chosen cult and humility and severity shown to the body, not in anything honourable (??)—to mere repletion of your flesh!

(Col 3:1) If all such rules are useless and you also died with Christ and were further raised with Christ out of the old life into the new, make your efforts after the things above where Christ rightly belongs, and where He now is, seated in the place of honour and life-giving power, at God’s right hand. (Col 2:2) Fill your mind and heart with the things above, not with rules that belong to mere earthly life, (Col 2:3) for you died (and dead men have no more to do with earth), and your present time but spiritual life belongs to the invisible, bound up with Christ, in God. (Col 2:4) A time will come when this spiritual life of yours will no longer be hidden. When Christ (Christ, I repeat), who is our life itself, is publicly made known, then shall also you with Him—you in your true life with Him in His—be made known, and that in glory.

20. εἰ. No οὗν. For the forcible brusqueness cf. Col 2:8 and contrast Col 3:1.

ἀπεθάνετε. As already stated in Col 2:11-13.

Cf. Rom 6:8-11 where the argument closely resembles our Col 2:20 to Col 3:4; also 2Co 5:15; Gal 2:19.

σὺν Χριστῷ. In Col 3:3, σὺν τῷ χριστῷ. See on Col 1:7.

σὺν, for Christ was, in a sense, under τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμον until His death, being under law, Gal 4:4; cf. Gal 3:13.

ἀπὸ. Here only with ἀποθνήσκειν. It marks more complete severance than the dative (Rom 6:2). Cf. 2Co 11:3; Rom 7:6.

τῶν στοιχείων τοῦ κόσμον, see Col 2:8, note. The rudimentary teaching of the world, summed up in law with its rules and ordinances.

τί (Rom 3:7, Gal 5:11), ὡς (1Co 5:3), ζῶντες, i.e. as if not dead to the world but still finding energy and pleasure in it. St Paul could hardly write ὄντες, even though he said ὅτε γὰρ ἦμεν ἐν τῇ σαρκί, Rom 7:5. For the thought cf. also Gal 6:14. Your “life” is “in God,” Col 3:3. For ζῆν ἐν = “finding your interests and pleasures in,” cf. Col 3:7.

ἐν κόσμῳ. The absence of the article perhaps accentuates the contrast to σὺν Χριστῷ, and in any case emphasizes the character of the κόσμος as compared with anything spiritual.

δογματίζεσθε. Here only in N.T., but with doubtless some reference to τοῖς δόγμασι, Col 2:14. It occurs occasionally in the Apocrypha, twice of religious enactments: 2Ma 10:8, Judas Maccabaeus and those with him ἐδογμάτισαν … παντὶ τῷ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἔθνει κατʼ ἐνιαυτὸν ἄγειν τὰς δεκάτας ἡμέρας; cf. 2Ma 15:36.

Whether it is in the passive or in the middle (R.V.) here is very uncertain, but the former is perhaps preferable as indicating the strength of the power exerted upon them. In this Epistle not the Colossians, as such, but the false teachers are blamed (especially Col 2:18-19). Efforts were being made to place the Colossians under the bondage of ritual ordinances. “Paul’s question reveals how inconsistent with their relation to Christ and His death is such bondage. To try to maintain it, is to try to keep in prison one whom death has made free” (Beet). The Vulg. translates it as transitive, “decernitis,” for which there appears to be no parallel, and to which the context is altogether opposed.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As though your felicity stood in these earthly things, and the kingdom of God were not rather spiritual.

Now last of all he fighteth against the second kind of corruptions, that is to say, against mere superstitions, invented of men, which partly deceive the simplicity of some with their craftiness, and partly with very foolish superstitions, and to be laughed at: as when godliness, remission of sins, or any such like virtue is put in some certain kind of meat and such like things, which the inventors of such rites themselves understand not, because indeed it is not. And he useth an argument taken of comparison. If by the death of Christ who establisheth a new covenant with his blood, you be delivered from those external rites wherewith it pleased the Lord to prepare the world, as it were by certain rudiments to that full knowledge of true religion, why would ye be burdened with traditions, I wrote not what, as though ye were citizens of this world, that is to say, as though ye depended upon this life, and earthly things? Now this is the cause why before verse 8 he followed another order than he doth in the confutation: because he showeth thereby what degrees false religions came into the world, to wit, beginning first by curious speculations of the wise after which in process of time succeeded gross superstition, against which mischiefs the Lord set at length that service of the Law, which some abused in like sort: but in the confutation he began with the abolishing of the Law service, that he might show by comparison, that those false services ought much more to be taken away.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Wherefore--The oldest manuscripts omit "Wherefore."

if ye be dead--Greek, "if ye died (so as to be freed) from," &c. (compare Rom 6:2; Rom 7:2-3; Gal 2:19).

rudiments of the world-- (Col 2:8). Carnal, outward, worldly, legal ordinances.

as though living--as though you were not dead to the world like your crucified Lord, into whose death ye were buried (Gal 6:14; Pe1 4:1-2).

are ye subject to ordinances--By do ye submit to be made subject to ordinances? Referring to Col 2:14 : you are again being made subject to "ordinances," the "handwriting" of which had been "blotted out" (Col 2:14).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 20. If ye be dead with Christ] See the notes on Ro 6:3; Ro 6:5.

From the rudiments of the world] Ye have renounced all hope of salvation from the observance of Jewish rites and ceremonies, which were only rudiments, first elements, or the alphabet, out of which the whole science of Christianity was composed. We have often seen that the world and this world signify the Jewish dispensation, or the rites, ceremonies, and services performed under it.

Why, as though living in the world] Why, as if ye were still under the same dispensation from which you have been already freed, are ye subject to its ordinances, performing them as if expecting salvation from this performance?

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. If ye are dead. He had previously said, that the ordinances were fastened to the cross of Christ. (Colossians 2:14.) He now employs another figure of speech — that we are dead to them, as he teaches us elsewhere, that we are dead to the law, and the law, on the other hand, to us. (Galatians 2:19.) The term death means abrogation, but it is more expressive and more emphatic, (καὶ ἐμφατικώτερον.) He says, therefore, that the Colossians, have nothing to do with ordinances. Why? Because they have died with Christ to ordinances; that is, after they died with Christ by regeneration, they were, through his kindness, set free from ordinances, that they may not belong to them any more. Hence he concludes that they are by no means bound by the ordinances, which the false apostles endeavored to impose upon them.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(20) If ye be dead with Christ.—The whole idea of the death with Christ and resurrection with Him is summed up by St. Paul in Rom_6:3-9, in direct connection (as also here, see Col_2:12) with the entrance upon Christian life in baptism, “We are buried with Him by baptism unto death . . . we are dead with Christ . . . we are planted together in the likeness of His death . . . that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life . . . planted together in the likeness of His resurrection . . . alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The death with Christ is a death unto “the life of the flesh.” But this may be (as in Rom_6:1-2; Rom_6:6-7; Rom_6:11) “the life of sin”; or it may be the outward and visible life “of the world.” The latter is the sense to be taken here. This outward life is under “ordinances” (see Col_2:1), under the “rudiments of the world” (see Col_2:8), or, generally, “under law.” Of such a life St. Paul says (in Gal_2:19), “I through the Law died to the Law, that I might live unto God.” There (Gal_4:9), as here, he brands as unspiritual the subjection to the “weak and beggarly elements” of mere ordinances. Of course it is clear that in their place such ordinances have their value, both as means to an end, and as symbols of an inner reality of self-devotion. The true teaching as to these is found in our Lord’s declaration to the Pharisees as to spiritual things and outward ordinances, “These things (the spiritual things) ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others (the outward observances) undone” (Mat_23:23). In later times St. Paul declared with Judicial calmness, “The Law is good if a man use it lawfully” (1Ti_1:8). But to exalt these things to the first place was a fatal superstition, which, both in its earlier and later phases, he denounces unsparingly.

(20-23) In this and the succeeding section, St. Paul, starting from the idea of union with the Head, draws out the practical consequences of partaking of the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. In virtue of the former participation, he exhorts them to be dead to the law of outward ordinances; in virtue of the latter, to have a life hid with Christ in God.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. Wherefore] The word is certainly to be omitted on documentary evidence. A new and separate theme is now in view, the doctrines of the intruding teachers about duty and morals.

if ye be dead] Lit. and better, with R.V., if ye died. See on Col_2:11-12.—“If” assumes the “death” as a fact.

with Christ] To whom they were vitally joined, through faith, sealed by baptism, for all the purposes of His redeeming work.

from the rudiments of the world] See above on Col_2:8.

living in the world] Not merely “being,” but “living;” having your life-power and life-interests of and in the world. Their true “life was hid with Christ” (Col_3:3), and so could not be truly thus conditioned.

are ye subject to ordinances?] R.V. “do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?” Lightfoot, “are ye overridden with precepts, ordinances?” The latter rendering is slightly too strong; but both indicate the main point of the Greek. The religion of the Colossians was becoming one of mechanical rule and measure, a round of ordered “practices,” imposed by directors, to expiate or purify by their performance. The life of faith and love was giving way to an arbitrary discipline, far different from the obedience of the heart to the will of God in Christ.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ,.... Or "seeing ye are dead with Christ"; for these words do not signify any doubt about it, but suppose it, and press what is taken for granted. They were dead with Christ by virtue of union to him; they being one with him, and considered in him as their head and representative, died in him, and with him; they were crucified with him, as they are said to be buried with him, and risen with him; they were dead with him, by having communion with him in his death; they partook of the benefits of it, as redemption, pardon, justification, and reconciliation; and they were planted together with him in the likeness of his death, not merely partakers of his sufferings, or suffered with him, and were conformable unto his death, by undergoing such like things as he did, but as he died unto sin, and lived unto God, so did they; and through the virtue and efficacy of his death were dead to sin, so as that it was not imputed to them, so as to be freed and discharged from it, that it could not damn and destroy them; yea, so as that itself was crucified with him, and destroyed by him: and also to the law, to the moral law; not but that they lived according to it, as in the hands of Christ, in their walk and conversation, but did not seek for life, righteousness, and salvation by it; they were dead unto it as to justification by it, and even to obedience to it in a rigorous and compulsive way; and to all its terrors and threatenings, being moved to a regard to it from a principle of love to Christ; and to all its accusations and charges, its curses and condemnation, and as a ministration of death, fearing neither a corporeal, nor an eternal one: they were dead also to the ceremonial law, and were free

from the rudiments, or "elements"

of the world: the ordinances of a worldly sanctuary, the rites and ceremonies of the world, or state of the Jews, in opposition to, and distinction from, the Gospel dispensation, or times of the Messiah, called, and that by them, , "the world to come": these were like letters to a language, or like the grammar, which contains the rudiments of it; these were the first principles of the oracles of God, which led to Christ, and had their accomplishment and end in him; and so believers were dead unto them, and delivered from them, as they were also to the world, the Jewish state, and were entered into the world to come; and even to this present evil world, and to the men and things of it, being by Christ crucified to it, and that to them: upon all which the apostle thus reasons,

why, as though living in the world; since ye are dead unto it, and from the rudiments of it, why should ye be as though ye lived in it? his meaning is not, that they should not live in the world, nor among the men of it, for then they must needs go out of the world; saints may live in the world, though they are not of it, and among the inhabitants of it, though they do not belong to them, but to another and better country: nor does he suggest, that they lived according to the course of the world, as they did in their unregenerate state; but what he seems to blame them for, and reason with them about, was, that they acted as if they sought for life and righteousness in the rudiments of the world, or by their obedience to ceremonial rites, or human inventions: for he adds,

are ye subject to ordinances? not civil and political ones, which are for the better and more orderly government of kingdoms, states, and cities, for these the saints ought to be subject to, both for the Lord's sake, and conscience sake; nor Gospel ordinances, as baptism, and the Lord's supper, for such all believers ought to submit unto; but either legal ones, the weak and beggarly elements, the yoke of bondage, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, the handwriting of ordinances, which some were desirous of conforming to; or rather the ordinances and appointments of the Jewish fathers, the traditions of the elders, their constitutions and decrees, which are collected together, and make up their Misna, or oral law; and so the argument is from the one to the other, from the greater to the less, that if they were delivered by Christ from the burdensome rites of the ceremonial law, which were originally appointed by God, it must be great weakness in them to be subject to the ordinances of men; or both the institutions of the ceremonial law, and the decrees of the Jewish doctors about them, which were devised by them, and added to them, and imposed as necessary to be observed, may be intended; of which the apostle gives some particulars in Col 2:21.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

Ver. 20. Are ye subject to ordinances] Why do ye dogmatize; or be burdened with rites or traditions, as they now are in the Papacy? John Aunt, a Roman Catholic, in his humble appeal to King James, in the sixth chapter of that pamphlet, thus blasphemeth God, -The God of the Protestants (whom he knows to be the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is the most uncivil and evil mannered God of all those who have borne the names of God upon earth; yea, worse than Pan, god of the clowns, which can endure no ceremonies nor good manners at all.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore - In view of all that has been said. If it be true that you are really dead to the world, why do you act as if you still lived under the principles of the world?

If ye be dead with Christ - If you are dead to the world in virtue of his death. The apostle here, as elsewhere, speaks of a very close union with Christ. We died with him; that is, such was the efficacy of his death, and such is our union with him, that we became dead also to the world; Notes, Rom 6:2, note, 4, note, 8, note, 11, note.

From the rudiments of the world - Margin, “elements.” The elements or principles which are of a worldly nature, and which reign among worldly men; see the notes at Gal 4:3.

Why, as though living in the world - Why do you allow them to influence you, as though you were living and acting under those worldly principles? They ought no more to do it, than the things of this world influence those who are in their graves.

Are ye subject to ordinances - The rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion; see the notes at Gal 5:1-4.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

If then you be dead with Christ, or if you be not of this world, why do you act as if you were in it? practising the ceremonies of the law, as if you still expected Christ; all which are hurtful to you. (St. Jerome) --- In your baptism you died with Jesus Christ to all legal observances, and should not therefore suffer any carnal laws to be imposed upon you, as if you were still living in this first state of the world. (Bible de Vence) --- These things have an appearance of humility, if your abstain from them through mortification, and not through any necessity, as if they were unclean. But if we look upon them, and reject them as impure, and despise those who do not follow our example, then these things, so far from being useful, become prejudicial. (Grotius) --- Why do you yet decree [7] in this manner? (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Quid adhuc decernitis, Greek: dogmatizesthe.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world: here the apostle doth further argue against all impositions of superstitious observances, obtruded as parts of Divine worship, whether in reviving those abrogated, or setting up new ones, upon supposition of their union with Christ their Head, and their being dead in him as to all beggarly elements from which he had freed them by his death, Rom 6:3,5; 7:4,6; Ga 4:9,10,11, with Col 2:19; no uncommanded worship or way of worship being after Christ, Col 2:8, in whom they were complete, Col 2:10, being buried with him in baptism, Col 2:12, having nailed those ritual ordinances to his cross, as antiquated or out-dated, Col 2:14.

Why, as though living in the world, are ye are subject to ordinances? Why should they, who held the Head, Col 2:19, as if they lived in the old world with those children in bondage, Gal 4:3, before Christ came, be subject to ceremonial observances? q.d. It is most injurious that they should impose this yoke upon you, {Act 15:10} ye are most foolish if ye submit your necks; for God would not have a ceremonial worship which he himself instituted to be abrogated, that a new one should be invented by men. If the Head of the church like not the reviving that worship he hath laid aside, be sure he will not approve of any new one which he never appointed. The apostle is not here speaking of the magistrates’ ordinances about things indifferent in their use, for the real good of the civil government, but of the way of worshipping God by religious abstinences, &c.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Therefore - The inference begun, Colossians ii, 16; is continued. A new inference follows, Colossians iii, 1. If ye are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world - That is, If ye are dead with Christ, and so freed from them, why receive ye ordinances - Which Christ hath not enjoined, from which he hath made you free.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

world

kosmos = world-system. Jas 1:27; Joh 7:7. (See Scofield "Rev 13:8").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our apostle being now in the close of this chapter, returns to expostulate, and argues the case with those who were willing to subject themselves to the observation of the old Jewish rites and ceremonies. He argues thus: "If says he, you profess yourselves in your baptism to be spiritually dead with Christ, and to be freed by his death from the Levitical ordinances, why are ye subject to those ordinances? Such are touch not, taste not, handle not; touch not any unclean thing, taste not any forbidden meat, handle not any consecrated vessel; all which observances were to perish necessarily with the very using: And whereas they were set of with a specious shew of wisdom, as if they were voluntary services and free-will offerings to God, he acknowledges, that they had indeed a shew of wisdom, a shew of humility, and seeming to give any honour to the satisfying of the flesh; but all this had nothing of spiritual devotion and piety in it."

Learn hence, 1. That such as do by baptism profess themselves to be dead with Christ to the ceremonial law, may certainly conclude, that the Jewish ceremonies have no more any power over them, or that they ought to yield themselves to the observation of them: If ye be dead with Christ, why are ye subject to ordinances?

Learn, 2. That though God approveth and accepteth willing worship, yet not will-worship, what fair shew soever it may seem to have, either of wisdom, humility, or mortification; whatever is the product of our fancies, is a very fornication in religion, and an abomination in the sight of God, how pleasing soever it may be in the sight of men; and yet men are most forward to that service of God which is of man’s finding out and setting up; man likes it better to worship a god of his own making, than to worship the God that made him; and likes any way of worshipping god which is of his own framing, more than that which is of God’s appointing. Ah! Wretched heart of man, which, whilst it seems very zealous to worship and honour God, hath not zeal to do it in any other way than in that which reflects the highest dishonour upon him.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20–23. Wherefore. Ye died with Christ, died to the world, and to its rudiments, or fleshly ordinances. See note on verses 8 and 12. Why, then, as though belonging to the world, should you be subject to obsolete Jewish ordinances?

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

If you died together with Christ to the elements of the world

With this metaphor, Paul speaks of a believer as a person who is spiritually united with Christ: as Christ died, so the believer has spiritually died; as Christ has come back to life, so the believer has come back to spiritual life, that is, to responsiveness to God. (See: Metaphor)

why do you live as obligated to the world: "Do ... touch"?

Paul used this question to rebuke the Colossians for following the false beliefs of the world. AT: "stop submitting to the world's beliefs! Stop believing them when they say, 'Do ... touch'!" (See: Rhetorical Question)

live as obligated to the world

"think you must obey the desires of the world"

the world

the thoughts, desires, and assumptions of the sinful majority of the world's people (See: Metonymy)

These rules have the wisdom of self-made religion and humility and severity of the body

"These rules seem wise to unbelieving people because they allow those who follow them to appear humble because they hurt their own bodies"

have no value against the indulgence of the flesh

"do not help you stop following your human desires"

translationWords

die

wise

flesh

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

20.] Warning against asceticism. If ye died (in your baptism, as detailed above, vv. 11 if.) with Christ from (a pregnant construction: ‘died, and so were set free from:’ not found elsewhere in N. T.: cf. Rom 6:2; Gal 2:19, where we have the dative) the elements (cf. ver. 8: the rudimentary lessons, i.e. ritualistic observances) of the world (see on ver. 8: Christ Himself was set free from these, when, being made under the law, He at His Death bore the curse of the law, and thus it was antiquated in Him), why, as living (emphatic, as though you had not died, see Gal 6:14) in the world, are ye being prescribed to (the active use of the verb, ‘to decree,’ is common in the later classics, and occurs in the LXX, and Apocrypha. The person to whom the thing is decreed or prescribed is put in the dative (2 Macc. 10:8), so that, according to usage, such person may become the subject of the passive verb: cf. Thuc. i. 82, ἡμεῖς ὑπʼ Ἀθηναίων ἐπιβουλευόμεθα (ἐπιβουλεύειν τινί),—Herod. vii. 144, αἱ δὲ νῆες … οὐκ ἐχρήσθησαν (χρῆσθαί τινι), and see Kühner, Gram. ii. p. 35. Some, as Bernhardy, p. 346, and Ellicott, prefer considering this form as middle, and give it the sense of “doceri vos sinitis.” It seems to be of very little consequence which we call it; the meaning in either case is almost identical: “why is the fact so?” or, “why do you allow it?” To my mind, the passive here carries more keen, because more hidden, rebuke. The ἀδικεῖσθε and ἀποστέρεσθε of 1Co 6:7 rest on somewhat different ground. There, the voluntary element comes into emphasis, and the middle sense is preferable. See note there. I cannot see, with Meyer, why we should be so anxious to divest the sentence of all appearance of blaming the Colossians, and cast all its blame on the false teachers. The passive (see above) would demand a reason for the fact being so—‘Cur ita siti estis, ut …,’ which is just as much a reproach as the middle ‘Cur, sinitis, ut …’ The active renderings, ‘decreta facitis,’ Melancth. (in Eadie), ‘decernitis,’ Ambrst. (ib.), are wrong both in grammar and in fact. The reference to δόγμασιν ver. 14 is plain. They were being again put under that χειρόγρ. which was wiped out and taken away) “Handle not, neither taste, nor even touch” (it will be understood that these words follow immediately upon δογματίζεσθε without a stop, as τὰ δογματιζόμενα;—just as the inf. in 2 Macc. 10:8. Then as to the meaning,—I agree with Calv., Beza, Beng., and Meyer in referring all the three to meats,—on account mainly of vv. 22, 23 (see below), but also of γεύσῃ coming as a defining term between the two less precise ones ἅψῃ and θίγῃς. Others have referred the three to different objects ἅψῃ and θίγῃς variously to meats, or unclean objects, or women: γεύσῃ universally to meats. Mey. remarks of the negatives, the relation of the three prohibitions is, that the first μηδέ is ‘nec,’ the second ‘ne … quidem.’ This would not be necessary from the form of the sentence, but seems supported by the word θίγῃς introducing a climax. Wetst. and the Commentators illustrate ἅψῃ and θίγῃς as applied to meats, by Xen. Cyr. i. 3. 5, ὅταν μὲν τοῦ ἄρτου ἅψῃ, (ὁρῶ) εἰς οὐδὲν τὴν χεῖρα ἀποψώμενον, ὅταν δὲ τούτων τινὸς θίγῃς, εὐθὺς ἀποκαθαίρῃ τὴν χεῖρα εἰς τὰ χειρόμακτρα)—which things (viz. the things forbidden) are set (ἐστιν emphatic, ‘whose very nature is …’) all of them for destruction (by corruption, see reff.) in their consumption (i.e. are appointed by the Creator to be decomposed and obliterated with their consumption by us. So Thdrt.—πῶς … νομίζετέ τινα μὲν τῶν ἐδεσμάτων ἔννομα, τινὰ δὲ παράνομα, κ. οὐ σκοπεῖτε ὡς μόνιμον τούτων οὐδέν; εἰς κόπρον γὰρ ἅπαντα μεταβάλλεται: and similarly Œc.—φθορᾷ γάρ, φησιν, ὑπόκειται ἐν τῷ ἀφεδρῶνι—Thl., Erasm., Luth., Beza, Calv., Grot., Wolf, Olsh., Mey., al. The argument in fact is similar to that in Mat 15:17, and 1Co 6:13.

Two other lines of interpretation have been followed: 1) that which carries the sense on from the three verbs, “Handle not, &c. things which tend to (moral) corruption in their use.” De W., Baum.-Crus., al. But this suits neither the collocation of the words, nor ἀποχρήσει, the ‘using up,’ ‘consumption,’ which should thus rather be χρήσει. 2) that which makes ἅ refer to δόγματα, and renders ‘which δόγματα all tend to (everlasting) destruction in their observance;’ but this is just as much against the sense of ἀπόχρησις, and would rather require τήρησις, if indeed τῇ ἀποχρήσει be not superfluous altogether. See these same objections urged at greater length in Meyer’s note)—according to (connects with δογματίζεσθε Μὴ … θίγῃς: the subsequent clause being a parenthetical remark; thus defining the general term δόγματα to consist in human, not divine commands) the commands and systems (διδασκαλία is the wider term comprising many ἐντάλματα. In reff., the wider term is prefixed: here, where examples of separate ἐντάλματα have been given, we rise from them to the system of doctrine of which they are a part) of men (not merely ἀνθρώπων, bringing out the individual authors of them, but τῶν ἀν. describing them generically as human, not divine. This I would press as against Ellic., who views the τῶν as the art. of correlation, rendered necessary by τὰ ἐντάλματα. But even if this usage were to be strictly pressed with such a word as ἀνθρώπων, the substantive nearest to it, διδασκαλίας, has no article), such as (ἅτινα brings us from the general objective, human doctrines and systems, to the specific subjective, the particular sort of doctrines and systems which they were following: q. d., ‘and that, such sort of ἐντ. κ. διδασκ. as …’) are possessed of (ἐστὶν ἔχοντα does not exactly = ἔχει, but betokens more the abiding attribute of these δόγματα—‘enjoy,’ as we say) a reputation (λόγον ἔχειν occurs in various meanings. Absolutely, it may signify ‘avoir raison,’ as Demosth. adv. Lept. p. 461, ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο οὕτωσι μὲν ἀκοῦσαι λόγον τινὰ ἔχον, which meaning is obviously out of place here:—as is also ‘to take account of,’ Herod. i. 62, Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ οἱ ἐκ τοῦ ἄστεος, ἕως … λόγον οὐδένα εἶχον. But the meaning ‘to have the repute of,’—found Herod. v. 66, Κλεισθένης … ὅσπερ δὴ λόγον ἔχει τὴν Πυθίην ἀναπεῖσαι (‘is said to have influenced the Pythia’),—and Plato, Epinomis, p. 987 b, ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἑωσφόρος ἕσπερός τε ὢν αὑτὸς Ἀφροδίτης εἶναι σχεδὸν ἔχει λόγον (‘Veneris esse dicitur,’ as Ficinus),—manifestly fits the context here, and is adopted by most Commentators) indeed (the μέν solitarium leaves the δέ to be supplied by the reader, or gathered from what follows. It is implied by it, not by the mere phrase λόγον ἔχειν (see the examples above), that they had the repute only without the reality) of wisdom in (element of its repute) voluntary worship (words of this form are not uncommon: so we have ἐθελοπρόξενος, a volunteer or self-constituted proxenus, in Thuc. iii. 70—ἐθελοκωφἑω, to pretend to be deaf, Strabo i. p. 36,—ἐθελοδουλεία, voluntary slavery, Plato Symp., p. 184 c, &c. &c.; see Lexx., and Aug., Ep. 149 (59, cited above on ver. 17), says ‘sic et vulgo dicitur qui divitem affectat thelodives, et qui sapientem thelosapiens, et cætera hujusmodi.’ Mey. cites Epiphan. Hær.xvi. p.34, explaining the name Pharisees, διὰ τὸ ἀφωρισμένους εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων διὰ τὴν ἐθελοπερισσοθρησκείαν παρʼ αὐτῶν νενομισμένην. See many more examples in Wetst. The θρ. was mainly that of angels, see above, ver. 18: but the generality of the expression here may take in other voluntary extravagancies of worship also) and humility (see ver. 18) and unsparingness of the body (Plato defines ἐλευθερία, ἀφειδία ἐν χρήσει κ. ἐν κτήσει οὐσίας, Def. p. 412 D: Thuc. ii. 43 has ἀφειδεῖν βίου: Diod. Sic. xiii. 60, ἀφειδῶς ἐχρῶντο τοῖς ἰδίοις σώμασιν εἰς τὴν κοινὴν σωτηρίαν, &c. &c., see Wetst.), not in any honour of it (on the interpretations, see below. τιμή is used by St. Paul of honour or respect bestowed on the body, in 1Co 12:23, 1Co 12:24: of honourable conduct in matters relating to the body, 1Th 4:4 (see note there: cf. also Rom 1:24): and such is the meaning I would assign to it here—these δόγματα have the repute of wisdom for (in) &c., and for (in) unsparingness of the body, not in any real honour done to it—its true honour being dedication to the Lord, 1Co 6:13),—to the satiating of the flesh? I connect these words not with the preceding clause, but with δογματίζεσθε above—‘why are ye suffering yourselves (see on the passive above) to be thus dogmatized (in the strain μὴ ἅψῃ &c. according to &c., which are &c.), and all for the satisfaction of the flesh’—for the following out of a διδασκαλία, the ground of which is the φυσιοῦσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ νοὸς τῆς σαρκός, ver. 18? then after this follow most naturally the exhortations of the next chapter; they are not to seek the πλησμονὴ τῆς σαρκός—not τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς φρονεῖν, but νεκρῶσαι τὰ μέλη τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. The ordinary interpretation of this difficult passage has been, as E. V. ‘not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh,’ meaning thereby, that such commands do not provide for the honour which we owe to the body in the supply of the proper refreshment to the flesh. But two great objections lie against this, and are in my judgment fatal to the interpretation in every shape: 1) that ἡ σάρξ cannot be used in this indifferent sense as equivalent to τὸ σῶμα, in a sentence where it occurs together with τὸ σῶμα, and where it has before occurred in an ethical sense: 2) that πλησμονή will not bear this meaning of mere ordinary supplying, ‘satisfying the wants of:’ but must imply satiety, ‘satisfying to repletion.’ The children of Israel were to eat the quails εἰς πλησμονήν, Exo 16:8: cf. also Deu 33:23: Lam 5:6; Hab 2:16: also διὰ τὰς ἀλόγους οἰνοφλυγίας κ. πλησμονάς, Polyb. ii. 19. 4.

Meyer renders—‘these commands have a repute for wisdom, &c.,—not for any thing which is really honourable (i.e. which may prove that repute to be grounded in truth), but in order thereby to the satiation of men’s sensual nature:’ and so, nearly, Ellicott. The objections to this are, 1) the strained meaning of τιμή τις,—2) the insertion of ‘but’ before πρός, or as in Ellic. ‘only’ after it, both which are wholly gratuitous. This same latter objection applies to the rendering of Beza, al., ‘nec tamen ullius sunt pretii, quum ad ea spectant quibus farcitur caro,’—besides that this latter paraphrase is unwarranted. See other renderings still further off the point in Mey. and De W. Among these I fear must be reckoned that of Conyb., ‘are of no value to check (?) the indulgence of fleshly passions,’ and that of Bähr and Eadie, regarding λόγον—τινι as participial, and joining ἐστιν with πρός—a harshness of construction wholly unexampled and improbable. The interpretation above given seems to me, after long consideration, the simplest, and most in accord with the context. It is no objection to it that the antithesis presented by οὐκ ἐν τιμῇ τινι is thus not to ἐν ἐθελοθρ. κ.τ.λ., but merely to ἀφειδίᾳ σώματος: for if the Apostle wished to bring out a negative antithesis to these last words only, he hardly could do so without repeating the preposition, the sense of which is carried on to ἀφειδίᾳ.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. εἰ ἀπεθάνετε σὺν Χριστῷ. “If ye died with Christ” (not “if ye be dead,” as AV.). They had died with Christ in baptism, vv. 11, 12, and had risen again with Him. Comp. Joh 6:49, Joh 6:58.

ἀπὸ τῶν στοιχείων τοῦ κόσμου. ἀποθνήσκειν ἀπό occurs here only in the N.T. The dative is used Rom 6:2; Gal 2:19. Here the preposition is more suitable, inasmuch as what is referred to is liberation from a dominating power.

τί ὡς ζῶντες ἐν κόσμῳ, not merely as being in the world, but living your life in the world. Their true “life was hid with Christ in God,” 3:3. To live in the world would be εἶναι ἐν τῇ σαρκί.

δογματίζεσθε. Probably best taken with RV. as middle. “Why do ye subject yourselves (or allow yourselves to be subjected) to ordinances?” The middle, indeed, implies some blame to the readers. But they were not compelled by force, so that even if the verb be understood as passive, it is implied that they submitted to the yoke.

The verb δογματίζειν occurs frequently in Sept. and Apocr., meaning “to issue a decree.” Elsewhere it is used of the precepts of philosophers. In the active it takes the indirect object in the dative, 2 Macc. 10:8, which therefore may become the subject of the passive.

οὖν of the Rec. Text has little support, of uncials only א* and אc.

τῷ before Χριστῷ scarcely any.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye be dead [απεθανετε] . Rev., more correctly, ye died; the aorist tense indicating a definite event. Paul uses the word died in many different relations, expressing that with which death dissolves the connection. Thus, died unto sin, unto self, unto the law, unto the world.

Rudiments of the world. Elementary teachings and practices the peculiar sphere of which is the world. World [κοσμου] has its ethical sense, the sum - total of human life in the ordered world, considered apart from, alienated from, and hostile to God, and of the earthly things which seduce from God. See on Joh 1:9.

Are ye subject to ordinances [δογματιζεσθε] . Only here in the New Testament. Rev., subject yourselves. Better passive, as emphasizing spiritual bondage. Why do ye submit to be dictated to? See on 1Co 1:22, where the imperious attitude of the Jews appears in their demanding credentials of the Gospel as sole possessors of the truth. The ordinances include both those of the law and of philosophy.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

αὔξει τὴν αὕξησιν κ.τ.λ.] By the two-fold means of contact and attachment nutriment has been diffused and structural unity has been attained, but these are not the ultimate result; they are only intermediate processes; the end is growth. Comp. Arist. Metaph. iv. 4 (p. 1014) αὔξησιν ἔχειδ’ ἑτέρου τῷ ἅπτεσθαι καὶ συμπεφυκέναι ... διαφέρει δὲ σύμφυσις ἁφῆς, where growth is attributed to the same two physiological conditions as here.

τοῦ Θεοῦ] i.e. ‘which partakes of God, which belongs to God, which has its abode in God.’ Thus the finite is truly united with the Infinite; the end which the false teachers strove in vain to compass is attained; the Gospel vindicates itself as the true theanthropism, after which the human heart is yearning and the human intellect is feeling. See above p. 183 sq. With this conclusion of the sentence contrast the parallel passage Ephes. iv. 16 τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ σώματος ποιεῖται εἰς οἰκοδομὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἐν ἀγάπῃ , where again the different endings are determined by the different motives of the two epistles.

The discoveries of modern physiology have invested the Apostle’s language with far greater distinctness and force than it can have worn to his own contemporaries. Any exposition of the nervous system more especially reads like a commentary on his image of the relations between the body and the head. At every turn we meet with some fresh illustration which kindles it with a flood of light. The volition communicated from the brain to the limbs, the sensations of the extremities telegraphed back to the brain, the absolute mutual sympathy between the head and the members, the instantaneous paralysis ensuing on the interruption of continuity, all these add to the completeness and life of the image. But the following passages will show how even ancient scientific speculation was feeling after those physiological truths which the image involves; Hippocr. de Morb. Sacr. p. 309 (ed Foese) κατὰ ταῦτα νομίζω τὸν ἐγκέφαλον δύναμιν πλείστην ἔχειν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ... οἱ δὲ ὀφθαλμοὶ καὶ τὰ οὔατα καὶ ἡ γλῶσσα καὶ αἱ χεῖρες καὶ οἱ πόδες, οἷα ἂν ὁ ἐγκέφαλος γινώσκῃ, τοιαῦτα ὑπηρετοῦσι ... ἐς δὲ τὴν σύνεσιν ὁ ἐγκέφαλος ἐστὶν ὁ διαγγέλλων ... διότι φημὶ τὸν ἐγκέφαλον εἶναι τὸν ἑρμηνεύοντα τὴν σύνεσιν, αἱ δὲ φρένες ἄλλως ὄνομα ἔχουσι τῇ τύχῃ κεκτημένον ... λέγουσι δέ τινες ὡς φρονέομεν τῇ καρδίῃ καὶ τὸ ἀνίωμενον τοῦτο ἐστι καὶ τὸ φροντίζον· τὸ δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει ... τῆς ... φρονήσιος οὐδετέρῳ μέτεστιν ἀλλὰ πάντων τουτέων ὁ ἐγκέφαλος αἴτιός ἐστιν ... πρῶτος αἰσθάνεται ὁ ἐγκέφαλος τῶν ἐν τῷ σώματι ἐνεόντων (where the theory is mixed up with some curious physiological speculations), Galen Op. I. 235 αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ ἐγκέφαλος ὅτι μὲν ἀρχὴ τοῖς νεύροις ἅπασι τῆς δυνάμεώς ἐστιν, ἐναργῶς ἐμάθομεν ... πότερον δὲ ὡς αὐτὸς τοῖς νεύροις, οὕτω ἐκέινῳ πάλιν ἕτερόν τι μόριον ἐπιπέμπει, ἢ πηγή τις αὐτῶν ἐστίν, ἔτ’ ἄδηλον, ib. IV. p. 11 ἀρχὴ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν (i.e. τῶν νεύρων) ὁ ἐγκέφαλός ἐστι, καὶ τὰ πάθη εἰς αὐτὸν φέρει, οἷον εἰς ἄρουράν τινα τῆς λογιστικῆς ψυχῆς· ἔκφυσις δ’ ἐντεῦθεν, οἷον πρέμνου τινὸς εἰς δένδρον ἀνήκοντος μέγα, ὁ νωτιαῖός ἐστι μυελὸς ... σύμπαν δ’ οὕτω τὸ σῶμα μεταλαμβάνει δι’ αὐτῶν πρώτης μὲν καὶ μάλιστα κινήσεως, ἐπὶ τάυτῃ δ’ αἰσθήσεως, XIV. p. 313 hάυτη γὰρ (i.e. ἡ κεφαλή) καθάπερ τις ἀκρόπολίς ἐστι τοῦ σώματος καὶ τῶν τιμιωτάτων καὶ ἀναγκαιοτάτων ἀνθρώποις αἰσθήσεων οἰκητήριον. Plato had made the head the central organ of the reason (Tim. 69 sq.: see Grote’s Plato III. pp. 272, 287, Aristotle II. p. 179 sq.), if indeed the speculations of the Timæus may be regarded as giving his serious physiological views; but he had postulated other centres of the emotions and appetites, the heart and the abdomen. Aristotle, while rightly refusing to localize the mind as mind, had taken a retrograde step physiologically, when he transferred the centre of sensation from the brain to the heart; e.g. de Part. Anim. ii. 10 (p. 656). Galen, criticizing his predecessors, says of Aristotle δῆλός ἐστι κατεγνωκὼς μὲν αὐτοῦ (i.e. τοῦ ἐγκεφάλοὐ τελέαν ἀχρηστίαν, φανερῶς δ’ ὁμολογεῖν αἰδούμενος (Op. III. p. 625). The Stoics however (Ζήνων καὶ Χρύσιππος ἅμα τῷ σφετέρῳ χορῷ παντί) were even worse offenders; and in reply to them more especially Galen elsewhere discusses the question πότερον ἐγκέφαλος ἢ καρδία τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχει, Op. V. p. 213 sq. Bearing in mind all this diversity of opinion among ancient physiologists, we cannot fail to be struck in the text not only with the correctness of the image but also with the propriety of the terms; and we are forcibly reminded that among the Apostle’s most intimate companions at this time was one whom he calls ‘the beloved physician’ (iv. 14).

20–23. ‘You died with Christ to your old life. All mundane relations have ceased for you. Why then do you—you who have attained your spiritual manhood—submit still to the rudimentary discipline of children? Why do you—you who are citizens of heaven—bow your necks afresh to the tyranny of material ordinances, as though you were still living in the world? It is the same old story again; the same round of hard, meaningless, vexatious prohibitions, ‘Handle not,’ ‘Taste not,’ ‘Touch not.’ What folly! When all these things—these meats and drinks and the like—are earthly, perishable, wholly trivial and unimportant! They are used, and there is an end of them. What is this, but to draw down upon yourselves the denunciations uttered by the prophet of old? What is this but to abandon God’s word for precepts which are issued by human authority and inculcated by human teachers? All such things have a show of wisdom, I grant. There is an officious parade of religious devotion, an eager affectation of humility; there is a stern ascetic rigour, which ill-treats the body; but there is nothing of any real value to check indulgence of the flesh.’

20. From the theological tenets of the false teachers the Apostle turns to the ethical—from the objects of their worship to the principles of their conduct. The baptism into Christ, he argues, is death to the world. The Christian has passed away to another sphere of existence. Mundane ordinances have ceased to have any value for him, because his mundane life has ended. They belong to the category of the perishable; he has been translated to the region of the eternal. It is therefore a denial of his Christianity to subject himself again to their tyranny, to return once more to the dominion of the world. See again the note on iii. 1.

εἰ ἀπεθάνετε] ‘if ye died, when ye were baptized into Christ.’ For this connexion between baptism and death see the notes on ii. 11, iii. 3. This death has many aspects in St Paul’s teaching. It is not only a dying with Christ, 2 Tim. ii. 11 εἰ γὰρ συναπεθάνομεν; but it is also a dying to or from something. This is sometimes represented as sin, Rom. vi. 2 ὁίτινες ἀπεθάνομεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ (comp. vv. 7, 8); sometimes as self, 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ἄρα οἱ πάντες ἀπέθανον ... ἵνα οἱ ζῶντες μήκετι ἑαυτοῖς ζῶσιν; sometimes as the law, Rom. vii. 6 κατηργήθημεν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἀποθανόντες, Gal. ii. 19 διὰ νόμου νόμῳ ἀπέθανον; sometimes still more widely as the world, regarded as the sphere of all material rules and all mundane interests, so here and iii. 3 ἀπεθάνετε γάρ. In all cases St Paul uses the aorist ἀπέθανον, never the perfect τέθνηκα; for he wishes to emphasize the one absolute crisis, which was marked by the change of changes. When the aorist is wanted, the compound verb ἀποθνήσκειν is used; when the perfect, the simple verb θήσκειν; see Buttmann Ausf. Gramm. § 114. This rule holds universally in the Greek Testament.

ἀπὸ τῶν στοιχείων κ.τ.λ.] i.e. ‘from the rudimentary, disciplinary, ordinances, whose sphere is the mundane and sensuous’: see the note on ver. 8. For the pregnant expression ἀποθανεῖν ἀπὸ comp. Gal. v. 4 κατηργήθητε ἀπὸ Χριστοῦ (so too Rom. vii. 2, 6), 2 Cor. xi. 3 φθαρῇ ... ἀπὸ τῆς ἁπλότητος, and see A. Buttmann p. 277 note.

J. B. Lightfoot, St Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon: a revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations (London: Macmillan, 1875) — public domain. Electronic text from Project Gutenberg (ebook #50857). Covers Colossians and Philemon only (the verse-by-verse notes; introductions and dissertations are omitted); Lightfoot's companion Galatians and Philippians volumes are not included, as the available public-domain scans carry garbled Greek that cannot be faithfully reproduced.