wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. Having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Let no one therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s. Let no one rob you of your prize by self-abasement and worshiping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God’s growth.
If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances, “Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch” (all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men? These things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, humility, and severity to the body; but aren’t of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv14–23 14. Having blotted out the hand-writing which was against…
14. Having blotted out the hand-writing which was against us. He now contends with the false apostles in close combat. For this was the main point in question, — whether the observance of ceremonies was necessary under the reign of Christ? Now Paul contends that ceremonies have been abolished, and to prove this he compares them to a hand-writing, by which God holds us as it were bound, that we may not be able to deny our guilt. He now says, that we have been freed from condemnation, in such a manner, that even the hand-writing is blotted out, that no remembrance of it might remain. For we know that as to debts the obligation is still in force, so long as the hand-writing remains; and that, on the other hand, by the erasing, or tearing of the handwriting, the debtor is set free. Hence it follows, that all those who still urge the observance of ceremonies, detract from the grace of Christ, as though absolution were not procured for us through him; for they restore to the hand-writing its freshness, so as to hold us still under obligation.
This, therefore, is a truly theological reason for proving the abrogation of ceremonies, because, if Christ has fully redeemed us from condemnation, he must have also effaced the remembrance of the obligation, that consciences may be pacified and tranquil in the sight of God, for these two things are conjoined. While interpreters explain this passage in various ways, there is not one of them that satisfies me. Some think that Paul speaks simply of the moral law, but there is no ground for this. For Paul is accustomed to give the name of ordinances to that department which consists in ceremonies, as he does in the Epistle to the Ephesians, (Ephesians 2:15,) and as we shall find he does shortly afterwards. More especially, the passage in Ephesians shews clearly, that Paul is here speaking of ceremonies.
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Others, therefore, do better, in restricting it to ceremonies, but they, too, err in this respect, that they do not add the reason why it is called hand-writing, or rather they assign a reason different from the true one, and they do not in a proper manner apply this similitude to the context. Now, the reason is, that all the ceremonies of Moses had in them some acknowledgment of guilt, which bound those that observed them with a firmer tie, as it were, in the view of God’s judgment. For example, what else were washings than an evidence of pollution? Whenever any victim was sacrificed, did not the people that stood by behold in it a representation of his death? For when persons substituted in their place an innocent animal, they confessed that they were themselves deserving of that death. In fine, in proportion as there were ceremonies belonging to it, just so many exhibitions were there of human guilt, and hand-writings of obligation.
Should any one object that they were sacraments of the grace of God, as Baptism and the Eucharist are to us at this day, the answer is easy. For there are two things to be considered in the ancient ceremonies — that they were suited to the time, and that they led men forward to the kingdom of Christ. Whatever was done at that time shewed in itself nothing but obligation. Grace was in a manner suspended until the advent of Christ — not that the Fathers were excluded from it, but they had not a present manifestation of it in their ceremonies. For they saw nothing in the sacrifices but the blood of beasts, and in their washings nothing but water. Hence, as to present view, condemnation remained; nay more, the ceremonies themselves sealed the condemnation. The Apostle speaks, also, in this manner in the whole of his Epistle to the Hebrews, because he places Christ in direct opposition to ceremonies. But how is it now? The Son of God has not only by his death delivered us from the condemnation of death, but in order that absolution might be made more certain, he abrogated those ceremonies, that no remembrance of obligation might remain. This is full liberty — that Christ has by his blood not only blotted out our sins, but every hand-writing which might declare us to be exposed to the judgment of God. Erasmus in his version has involved in confusion the thread of Paul’s discourse, by rendering it thus — “which was contrary to us by ordinances.” Retain, therefore, the rendering which I have given, as being the true and genuine one.
Took it out of the way, fastening it to his cross. He shews the manner in which Christ has effaced the hand-writing; for as he fastened to the cross our curse, our sins, and also the punishment that was due to us, so he has also fastened to it that bondage of the law, and everything that tends to bind consciences. For, on his being fastened to the cross, he took all things to himself, and even bound them upon him, that they might have no more power over us.
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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Abolishing the rites and ceremonies.
Abolishing the rites and ceremonies.
He speaketh now more generally against the whole service of the Law, and showeth by two reasons that it is abolished: First, to what purpose should he that hath obtained remission of all his sins in Christ require those helps of the Law? Secondly, because that if a man do rightly consider those rites, he shall find that they were so many testimonies of our guiltiness, whereby we manifestly witnessed as it were by our own handwriting that we deserved damnation. Therefore did Christ put out that handwriting by his coming and fastening it to the cross, triumphed over all our enemies, were they never so mighty. Therefore to what end and purpose should we now use those ceremonies, as though we were still guilty of sin, and subject to the tyranny of our enemies?
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv14–23 14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was…
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Ver. 14. Blotting out the handwriting] Crossing out the black lines of our sins with the red lines of his Son’s blood.
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.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against…
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us: having just before manifested God’s grace in the free forgiveness of all their trespasses, he doth here adjoin the foundation and means of this remission, viz. "Wiping out the bill of decrees," as one reads; or effacing and cancelling "the handwriting that was against us, which was contrary to us in traditions," as another, pointing after chirograph or handwriting: upon the matter in the explanation there will be no difference from our reading of it. Sin, in Scripture, is frequently accounted a debt, and the acquitting, the pardoning of it, Mat 6:12; Luk 11:4; 13:4; as the debtor is obliged to payment, so the sinner to punishment; only it is to be remembered, that though a private creditor may forgive his debt, yet unless the conservator of public justice do exempt an offender against the law, he is not acquitted, but is still under an obligation, bond or handwriting, having, as they under the Mosaic law, professed allegiance, Exo 24:7, which upon default was an evidence of this guilt to avenging justice. The law prescribed by the ministration of Moses was appendaged with many ceremonial ordinances, to the observation of all which circumcision did oblige: this obligation interpretatively was as a handwriting which did publicly testify a man’s native pollution, and was a public confession of his sin and misery, as washings did testify the filth of his sins, and sacrifices, capital guilt to them who lived under it, and did not perform it; that they were accursed, Gal 3:10,19, under a ministration of death, 2Co 3:7,9; while by laying their hands on the sacrifices, they did as it were sign a bill or bond against themselves, whereby conscience of guilt was retained, Heb 10:2,3, and a conscience of sin renewed, so that the heart could not be stablished in any firm peace, Heb 9:9; 10:1; but they did confess sin to remain, and that they did want a removal of the curse by a better sacrifice. Upon the offering up of this, the law of commandments was blotted out, cancelled or abolished, even that contained in ordinances, saith the apostle elsewhere; see Eph 2:15, compared with, Col 2:16,20,21; and therefore there is no condemnation to them that are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ, being found in him, Col 2:11, with Rom 8:1; 7:4.
Which was contrary to us; so that however the law, which was in itself holy, just, and good, through sin became in some sort contrary, or subcontrary, to us, in that it did serve to convict, and terrify with the curse for our default, Rom 7:5,9, aggravating all by its ceremonies, and shutting the gate of God’s house against the Gentiles, of whose number the Colossians were, strangers from the covenants of promise, Eph 2:12; yet this obligation was abrogated and annulled by the death of Christ, as the apostle expresseth it with great elegancy, having not only said that the debt was wiped out, defaced by the blood of Christ being drawn over it, as they used to blot out debts or draw red lines across them; but he adds,
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and took it out of the way; taken out of the way, as the debtor’s bond or obligation is, being cancelled and torn to pieces, so that there is no memorial or evidence of the debt doth remain, all matter of controversy being altogether removed. Yet, if it may be, to speak more fully and satisfactorily, he annexeth,
nailing it to his cross; what could be more significant? Implying that Christ, by once offering himself a sacrifice on the cross, had disarmed the law, and taken away its condemning power, Rom 7:4; Gal 3:13. It being customary (as learned men say) of old, especially in Asia, to pierce cancelled obligations and antiquated writings with nails; Christ by his plenary satisfaction did not only discharge from the condemnation of the law, Rom 8:1,34, but he did effectually, with the nails with which he himself was crucified, by interpretation, fasten the handwriting of ordinances to his cross, and abolished the ceremonial law in every regard, since the substance of it was come, and that which it tended to was accomplished, in giving himself a ransom for all, 1Ti 2:6, to the putting away of sin, Heb 9:26, and obtaining eternal redemption, Heb 9:12.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv16, 18, 20 Here we have an inference or conclusion drawn by…
Here we have an inference or conclusion drawn by our apostle from the foregoing argument, that seeing the ceremonial law was now abolished, therefore none should take upon them to judge or condemn another for not observing any of the legal ceremonies, either those that related to meats, that is, the difference to be observed in meats, or the other relating to the difference to be observed in days.
Here note, That the days observed amongst the Jews, were of three sorts: Anniversary, which returned every year, called here an holy day; Lunary which returned every month, the first day of every new moon; Weekly, which returned every week, and on the seventh day of every week: All which are abrogated, even the Jewish seventh-day sabbath; and the Lord’s day, or the Christian’s first-day sabbath, substituted in its place, 1Co 16:2.
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Observe here, 1. That there is both a sinful and a lawful abstinence from meats; that abstinence is sinful, when men abstain from some meats, under pretence of holiness and conscience, as if some meats were unclean, or less holy in their own natures than others, 1Ti 4:4 or as if simple abstinence at any time were a thing acceptable to God in itself, without respect had to the end for which it is sometimes required.
But there is a three-fold abstinence from meats, which is lawful; Political, enjoined by the magistrate for civil ends; Medicinal, prescribed by the physician for health’s preservation; Ecclesiastical, when God by his providence, and the voice of his church, calls his people to fasting.
Observe, 2. The reason alledged by the apostle, why Christians should not judge one another, with respect to meats and drinks, times and seasons, namely, because those legal ceremonies were but dark shadows of things to come; but the body and substance, represented by those shadows, is Christ come in the flesh: And consequently, to observe the ceremonies, and regard these shadows under the gospel, is in effect to say, That Christ the body is not yet come.
Here note, 1. The title given to the ceremonial worship, it is styled a shadow, because it was a dark and imperfect representation of the truth: What is a shadow, but the coming of a thick body posed between Christ the true light and us, and so casts a shadow of him.
Note, 2. The title given to Christ with respect to the shadows of the ceremonial law, he is the body and the substance of them; now as the shadow vanishes when the substance is come, so these ceremonial ordinances were to cease upon the coming of Christ; and to observe them now, under the gospel, is in effect to say, that Christ is not yet come in the flesh.
Note, 3. That the Jewish sabbath was a ceremonial ordinance, and a part of that handwriting of ordinances which was to be blotted out by Christ; and consequently the Christian is not obliged to observe it.
As the distinction of meats and drinks and the observation of the new moons were confessedly ceremonial; so was also the Jewish sabbath, which with the rest was equally cancelled by Christ as a part of the handwriting of ordinances; so that to observe the Jewish sabbath, or to condemn the Christian for not observing it, is as much a denial, that Christ is come in the flesh as to observe circumcision, or any other part of the ceremonial law.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v16 The apostle concludes the chapter with exhortations to proper…
The apostle concludes the chapter with exhortations to proper duty, which he infers from the foregoing discourse.
I. Here is a caution to take heed of judaizing teachers, or those who would impose upon Christians the yoke of the ceremonial law: Let no man therefore judge you in meat nor drink, etc., Col 2:16. Much of the ceremonies of the law of Moses consisted in the distinction of meats and days. It appears by Rom. 14 that there were those who were for keeping up those distinctions: but here the apostle shows that since Christ has come, and has cancelled the ceremonial law, we ought not to keep it up. "Let no man impose those things upon you, for God has not imposed them: if God has made you free, be not you again entangled in that yoke of bondage." And this the rather because these things were shadows of things to come (Col 2:17), intimating that they had no intrinsic worth in them and that they are now done away. But the body is of Christ: the body, of which they were shadows, has come; and to continue the ceremonial observances, which were only types and shadows of Christ and the gospel, carries an intimation that Christ has not yet come and the gospel state has not yet commenced. Observe the advantages we have under the gospel, above what they had under the law: they had the shadows, we have the substance.
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II. He cautions them to take heed of those who would introduce the worship of angels as mediators between God and them, as the Gentile philosophers did: Let no man beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, Col 2:18. It looked like a piece of modesty to make use of the mediation of angels, as conscious to ourselves of our unworthiness to speak immediately to God; but, though it has a show of humility, it is a voluntary, not a commanded humility; and therefore it is not acceptable, yea, it is not warrantable: it is taking that honour which is due to Christ only and giving it to a creature. Besides, the notions upon which this practice was grounded were merely the inventions of men and not by divine revelation, - the proud conceits of human reason, which make a man presume to dive into things, and determine them, without sufficient knowledge and warrant: Intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind - pretending to describe the order of angels, and their respective ministries, which God has hidden from us; and therefore, though there was a show of humility in the practice, there was a real pride in the principle. They advanced those notions to gratify their own carnal fancy, and were fond of being thought wiser than other people. Pride is at the bottom of a great many errors and corruptions, and even of many evil practices, which have great show and appearance of humility. Those who do so do not hold the head, Col 2:19. They do in effect disclaim Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man. It is the highest disparagement to Christ, who is the head of the church, for any of the members of it to make use of any intercessors with God but him. When men let go their hold of Christ, they catch at that which is next them and will stand them in no stead. - From which all the body, by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. Observe, 1. Jesus Christ is not only a head of government over the church, but a head of vital influence to it. They are knit to him by joints and bands, as the several members of the body are united to the head, and receive life and nourishment from him. 2. The body of Christ is a growing body: it increaseth with the increase of God. The new man is increasing, and the nature of grace is to grow, where there is not an accidental hindrance. - With the increase of God, with an increase of grace which is from God as its author; or, in a usual Hebraism, with a large and abundant increase. - That you may be filled with all the fulness of God, Eph 3:19. See a parallel expression, Which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, maketh increase of the body, Eph 4:15, Eph 4:16.
III. He takes occasion hence to warn them again: "Wherefore, if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances? Col 2:20. If as Christians you are dead to the observances of the ceremonial law, why are you subject to them? Such observances as, Touch not, taste not, handle not," Col 2:21, Col 2:22. Under the law there was a ceremonial pollution contracted by touching a dead body, or any thing offered to an idol; or by tasting any forbidden meats, etc., which all are to perish with the using, having no intrinsic worth in themselves to support them, and those who used them saw them perishing and passing away; or, which tend to corrupt the Christian faith, having no other authority than the traditions and injunctions of men. - Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility. They thought themselves wiser than their neighbours, in observing the law of Moses together with the gospel of Christ, that they might be sure in the one, at least, to be in the right; but, alas! it was but a show of wisdom, a mere invention and pretence. So they seem to neglect the body, by abstaining from such and such meats, and mortifying their bodily pleasures and appetites; but there is nothing of true devotion in these things, for the gospel teaches us to worship God in spirit and truth and not by ritual observances, and through the mediation of Christ alone and not of any angels. Observe, 1. Christians are freed by Christ from the ritual observances of Moses's law, and delivered from that yoke of bondage which God himself had laid upon them. 2. Subjection to ordinances, or human appointments in the worship of God, is highly blamable, and contrary to the freedom and liberty of the gospel. The apostle requires Christians to stand fast in the liberty with which Christ hath made them free, and not to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage, Gal 5:1. And the imposition of them is invading the authority of Christ, the head of the church, and introducing another law of commandments contained in ordinances, when Christ has abolished the old one, Eph 2:15. 3. Such things have only a show of wisdom, but are really folly. It is true wisdom to keep close to the appointments of the gospel, and an entire subjection to Christ, the only head of the church.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances,.... Various are the…
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances,.... Various are the senses interpreters give of these words; some think by the handwriting is meant the covenant God made with Adam, Gen 2:17, which being broken, obliged him and all his posterity to the penalty of death, but is cancelled and abolished by Christ; others, the agreement which the Israelites made with God at Mount Sinai, when they said, "all that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient", Exo 24:7; which was as it were setting their hands, and laying themselves under obligation to obedience, and, in case of failure, to the penalty of the law; others, God's book of remembrance of the sins of men, out of which they are blotted when pardoned; others, the book of conscience, which bears witness to every debt, to every violation and transgression of the law, which may be said to be blotted out, when pacified with an application of the blood and righteousness of Christ; rather with others it signifies the ceremonial law, which lay in divers ordinances and commands, and is what, the apostle afterwards speaks of more clearly and particularly; and may be called so, because submission to it was an acknowledgment both of the faith and guilt of sin; every washing was saying, that a man was polluted and unclean; and every sacrifice was signing a man's own guilt and condemnation, and testifying that he deserved to die as the creature did, which was offered in sacrifice: or rather the whole law of Moses is intended, which was the handwriting of God, and obliged to obedience to it, and to punishment in case of disobedience; and this the Jews (z) call , "the writing of the debt", and is the very phrase the Syriac version uses here: now this was as a debt book, which showed and testified the debts of men; that is, their sins, how many they are guilty of, and what punishment is due unto them: and may well be said to be that
that was against us, which was contrary to us; its nature being holy, just, good, and spiritual, is contrary to the unholy and carnal heart of man, and its commands disagreeable to his mind and will; nor can he perform what it requires; nor can he be subject to it without the grace of God, any more than he can like its precepts; and besides, it is contrary to him, and against him, as it charges him with debts, and proves them upon him, so that he has nothing to say in his defence; yea, it proceeds against him, and curses and condemns, and kills him: but God has "blotted" it out, Christ having engaged as a surety for his people, to pay off all their debts; and this being done by him, God has crossed the debt book of the law, has blotted it out, so that this book is of no force; it does not stand against these persons, it cannot show or prove any standing debt, it cannot demand any, or inflict any penalty: nay, he has
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took it out of the way; it is not to be seen or looked into as a debt book; it is abolished and done away; it is no more as administered by Moses, as a covenant of works, or as to its rigorous exaction, curse, and condemnation; this is true of the whole law of Moses, as well as of the ceremonial, which is utterly abolished and disannulled in every sense, because of the weakness and unprofitableness of it:
nailing it to his cross: to the cross of Christ, showing that the abolition of it is owing to the cross of Christ; where and when he bore the curse and penalty of the law for his people, as well as answered all the types and shadows of it: it is thought to be an allusion to a custom in some countries, to cancel bonds, or antiquate edicts and decrees, by driving a nail through them, so that they could not be legible any more: or it may be to the writing of Pilate, which contained the charge and accusation against Christ; and which was placed over his head upon the cross, and fastened to it with nails (a); every nail in the cross made a scissure in this handwriting, or bond of the law, that lay against us, whereby it was so rent and torn, as to be of no force: thus the Holy Ghost makes use of various expressions, to show that there is nothing in the law standing against the saints; it is blotted out, and cannot be read; it is took away, and cannot be seen; it is nailed to the cross of Christ, and is torn to pieces thereby, that nothing can ever be produced from it to their hurt and condemnation,
(z) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 87. 1, 3. (a) Nonnus in Joh. xix. 19. Vid. Niccqueti Titulus S. Crucis, l. 1. c. 18. p. 128.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Having blotted out - in consequence of his gracious…
Having blotted out - in consequence of his gracious decrees, that Christ should come into the world to save sinners, and that whosoever believeth on him should have everlasting life. The handwriting against us - Where a debt is contracted, it is usually testified by some handwriting; and when the debt is forgiven, the handwriting is destroyed, either by blotting it out, by taking it away, or by tearing it. The apostle expresses in all these three ways, God's destroying the handwriting which was contrary to us, or at enmity with us. This was not properly our sins themselves, (they were the debt,) but their guilt and cry before God.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Verse 14. Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances] By…
Verse 14. Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances] By the hand-writing of ordinances the apostle most evidently means the ceremonial law: this was against them, for they were bound to fulfil it; and it was contrary to them, as condemning them for their neglect and transgression of it. This law God himself has blotted out.
Blotting out the hand-writing is probably an allusion to Nu 5:23, where the curses written in the book, in the case of the woman suspected of adultery, are directed to be blotted out with the bitter waters. And there can be little doubt of a farther allusion, viz., to the custom of discharging the writing from parchment by the application of such a fluid as the muriatic acid, which immediately dissolves those ferruginous calces which constitute the blackening principle of most inks. But the East India inks, being formed only of simple black, such as burnt ivory, or cork, and gum water, may be wiped clean off from the surface of the paper or parchment by the application of a wet sponge, so as to leave not one legible vestige remaining: this I have often proved.
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Nailing it to his cross] When Christ was nailed to the cross, our obligation to fulfil these ordinances was done away. There may be another reference here to some ancient mode of annulling legal obligations, by nailing them to a post; but I do not recollect at present an instance or example. Antiquated laws are said to have been thus abrogated.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv16, 18, 20 Col 2:16-17. Let no man, therefore, &c. — Seeing…
Col 2:16-17. Let no man, therefore, &c. — Seeing these things are so, and the ceremonial law is now abolished, let no one, who is in a bigoted manner attached to it, judge and condemn you Gentile Christians; that is, regard none who judge you, in regard to the use of meat or drink — Forbidden by it; or in respect of a holyday — Η εν μερει εοπτης, in respect of a festival. The festivals, distinguished from new moons and sabbaths, meant days of rejoicing annually observed. Of these some were enjoined in the law, others by human authority, such as those instituted in commemoration of the deliverance of the Jews by Esther, and of the purification of the temple by Judas Maccabeus. Or the new moon, or the sabbath days — The weekly Jewish sabbaths; which are but a lifeless shadow emblematical of good things to come — Intended to lead men’s minds to spiritual and evangelical blessings. But the body — Of those shadows; is of Christ — The substance of them is exhibited in the gospel of Christ, in whom they all centre; and having the latter, we need not be solicitous about the former. “The whole of the ceremonial law of Moses being abrogated by Christ, (Col 2:14,) Christians are under no obligation to observe any of the Jewish holydays, not even the seventh-day sabbath. Wherefore, if any teacher made the observance of the seventh day a necessary duty, the Colossians were to resist him. But though the brethren in the first age paid no regard to the Jewish seventh-day sabbath, they set apart the first day of the week for public worship, and for commemorating the death and resurrection of their Master, by eating his supper on that day; also for the private exercises of devotion. This they did, either by the precept or by the example of the apostles, and not by virtue of any injunction in the law of Moses. Besides, they did not sanctify the first day of the week in the Jewish manner, by a total abstinence from bodily labour of every kind. That practice was condemned by the council of Laodicea, as Judaizing.” — Macknight.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Blotting out the handwriting - The word rendered handwriting…
Blotting out the handwriting - The word rendered handwriting means something written by the hand, a manuscript; and here, probably, the writings of the Mosaic law, or the law appointing many ordinances or observances in religion. The allusion is probably to a written contract, in which we bind ourselves to do any work, or to make a payment, and which remains in force against us until the bond is cancelled. That might be done, either by blotting out the names, or by drawing lines through it, or, as appears to have been practiced in the East, by driving a nail through it. The Jewish ceremonial law is here represented as such a contract, binding those under it to its observance, until it was nailed to the cross. The meaning here is, that the burdensome requirements of the Mosaic law are abolished, and that its necessity is superseded by the death of Christ. His death had the same effect, in reference to those ordinances, as if they had been blotted from the statute-book. This it did by fulfilling them, by introducing a more perfect system, and by rendering their observance no longer necessary, since all that they were designed to typify had been now accomplished in a better way; compare the notes at Eph 2:15.
Of ordinances - Prescribing the numerous rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion.
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That was against us - That is, against our peace, happiness, comfort; or in other words, which was oppressive and burdensome; compare the notes at Act 15:10. Those ordinances bound and lettered the soul, restrained the expansive spirit of true piety which seeks the salvation of all alike, and thus operated as a hindrance to the enlarged spirit of true religion. Thus, they really operated against the truly pious Jew, whose religion would lead him to seek the salvation of the world; and to the Gentile, since he was not in a situation to avail himself of them, and since they would be burdensome if he could. It is in this sense, probably, that the apostle uses the word “us,” as referring to all, and as cramping and restraining the true nature of religion.
Which was contrary to us - Operated as a hindrance, or obstruction, in the matter of religion. The ordinances of the Mosaic law were necessary, in order to introduce the gospel; but they were always burdensome. They were to be confined to one people; and, if they were continued, they would operate to prevent the spread of the true religion around the world; compare 2Co 3:7, note, 9, note. Hence, the exulting language of the apostle in view of the fact that they were now taken away, and that the benefits of religion might be diffused all over the world. The gospel contains nothing which is “against,” or “contrary to,” the true interest and happiness of any nation or any class of people.
And took it out of the way - Greek, “Out of the midst;” that is, he wholly removed it. He has removed the obstruction, so that it no longer prevents union and harmony between the Jews and the Gentiles.
Nailing it to his cross - As if he had nailed it to his cross, so that it would be entirely removed out of our way. The death of Jesus had the same effect, in regard to the rites and institutions of the Mosaic religion, as if they had been affixed to his cross. It is said that there is an allusion here to the ancient method by which a bond or obligation was cancelled, by driving a nail through it, and affixing it to a post. This was practiced, says Grotius, in Asia. In a somewhat similar manner, in our banks now, a sharp instrument like the blade of a knife is driven through a check, making a hole through it, and furnishing to the teller of the bank a sign or evidence that it has been paid. If this be the meaning, then the expression here denotes that the obligation of the Jewish institutions ceased on the death of Jesus, as if he had taken them and nailed them to his own cross, in the manner in which a bond was cancelled.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23 Blotting out, &c.[4] This is commonly expounded of the…
Blotting out, &c.[4] This is commonly expounded of the sentence of eternal death pronounced against sinful Adam, and all his posterity, for having sinned in him. Others would have it to signify only the yoke and obligations of the Mosaical law, which could not of itself remit sins, and occasionally made persons greater sinners. This sentence of death (whether we understand the one or the other) Christ took away, fastening it as it were, to the cross, taking it away by his death on the cross. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Chirographum decreti; Greek: cheirographon tou dogmatos. In the common Greek copies, Greek: tois dogmasi, as Ephesians ii. 15.
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v16 5. Two special warnings
5. Two special warnings
(2:16–23.)
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16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink [in eating or in drinking],24 or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days [of sabbaths]:25 17Which26 are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ [Christ’s]. 18Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility [arbitrarily in humility]27 and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not28 seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind [lit., the mind of his flesh], 19And not holding the Head, from which [whom]29 all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered [being supplied], and knit together, increaseth with the increase 20of God. Wherefore [omit Wherefore]30 if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21(Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22Which all are to perish with the using;) [for destruction in the consumption:]31 after the commandments and doctrines of men? 23Which things have indeed a shew [repute] of wisdom in will-worship, and humility; and neglecting [unsparingness]32 of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh [only to the satisfying of the flesh].33
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The first warning, against a fleshly legality. Col_2:16-17.
Col_2:16. Let no man therefore judge you.—Since the personality of the readers is strongly emphasized by the position of the words: τις ὑμᾶς. in sharp contrast, “therefore” refers to what was said above (Col_2:1-15), especially to their endowments and position in Christ: not merely however to the doing away of the Mosaic law (Meyer and others). Bengel: ex. v. 8–15 deducitur igitur. Κρίνειν means “to judge;” the connexion defines it more closely : allow no one the right to judge and to condemn you, if you do not respond to such demands. The warning is found in this,—permitting their action to be determined by this (Bleek). Neminem, qui vos judicare conatur, audiatis (Bengel). He treats of Christian, gospel freedom. Luther: Let no one make conscience for you (see also Rom_14:22). It is not therefore=κατακρινέτω (Baehr).
In eating or in drinking.—, Ἐν denotes the sphere, the point where the judgment was exercised, as Rom_2:1. Βρώσει. and πόσει set forth the act of eating and drinking—food is βρῶμα; drink, πόμα (Rom_14:17; 2Co_9:10; 1Co_8:4; 1Co_10:4; Heb_11:10). As the Mosaic law had (Lev_7:10-27) prohibitions respecting food alone, and forbade wine only to the Nazarites (Num_6:3), and during the time of priestly service (Lev_10:9), the false teachers had certainly gone beyond this and heightened asceticism for Christians (Mat_23:24; Rom_14:21). It is a false view, that there is here only a consonance without further significance (De Wette). Whether all indulgence in meat (Olshausen) or in wine (Schenkel) was forbidden, does not appear from the context.
Or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of sabbaths.—After “eating and drinking,” joined with the copulative καί, the disjunctive union with ἤ follows, because the Apostle passes over to another matter. [It is true that eating and drinking may form one category, but in view of the doubtful reading, there is no sufficient critical or exegetical ground for preferring to make the above distinction.—R.] Ἐνμέρει, in respect of, in the point of (2Co_3:10; 2Co_9:8; comp. Winer’s Gram. p. 571), denotes the category, which includes the species: ἑορτῆς, festum annum, νομηνίας, in mense, σαββάτων, in hebdomade (Bengel); the diversity is indicated by ἤ instead of καί. The threefold order of 1Ch_23:31; 2Ch_2:4; 2Ch_31:3, is transposed. Comp. Gal_4:10. It is incorrect to apply it to partial observances of festivals (Chrysostom and others), or to make it=vicibus festorum (Melanchthon), or=ne ulla quidem eorum ex parte (Suicer); Beza and others inexactly interpret by respectu. [The E. V. “in respect of” is exact enough, as it certainly suggests the idea of a category,=in the matter of.—R.] Christians should not permit themselves to be bound to Jewish festivals in their worship of God; neither to the three great annual feasts, nor the new moons, nor the Sabbath; σάββατα=σάββατον, Mat_12:1; Luk_4:16; Act_13:14; Act_16:13; it does not refer to the triple Sabbath (jubilee year, Sabbatic year, weekly Sabbath, Heumann [Barnes). Bengel: hic significanter positus; nam sabbata dicuntur dies singuli hebdomados. Thus Ignatius contends against the σαββατίζειν as well as against Judaism in the Epistle to the Magnesians, 9. [The passage reads in English: “no longer observing Sabbaths, but keeping the Lord’s day.”—Eadie:—“nor were they to hallow the ‘Sabbaths,’ for these had served their purpose, and the Lord’s Day was now to be a season of loftier joy, as it commemorates a more august event than either the creation of the universe, or the exodus from Egypt. The new religion is too free and exuberant to be trained down to ‘times and seasons’ like its tame and rudimental predecessor. Its feast is daily, for every day is holy; its moon never wanes, and its serene tranquility is an unbroken Sabbath.” The Jewish Sabbath was kept by the early Christians as well as the Lord’s Day. The practice was condemned finally at a council in the neighboring city of Laodicea.—Wordsworth: “σαββάτων, the Seventh day Sabbath, the Jewish Sabbath, which as far as it was the seventh day Rest, had been filled by Christ resting in the grave. The position of the day is changed, but the proportion remains unchanged, and has received new strength and sanction by its consecration to Christ under the gospel in the Lord’s Day.”—R.].
Col_2:17. Which are a shadow of things to come.—This verse is a proof of the warning. “O [see critical notes; the meaning is the same if the reading a be adopted.—R.] comprises all as a unit, and means: this (eating, drinking, feasts according to the precepts of the laws of Moses) is “a shadow of things to come.” Σηιά, umbra vitæ expers (Bengel), is not=σκιαγραφία, sketched in outline with charcoal, “silhouette” (Calvin and others), since its antithesis here is not εἰκώς, but σῶμα. It denotes the typical in the Mosaic law, not exactly the unsubstantialness (Meyer) or the transitoriness (Spener), and not at all the darkness (Musculus); for it gives certain intimation of the substance of the reality, and truth of the “things to come” (Heb_8:5; Heb_10:1). Ἐστίν denotes the permanent nature of the former things; it is not=ἧν, but the commands and institutions have and retain a typical meaning. Τὰ μέλλοντα are future things, the things of αἰὼν μέλλων, not like this (Schenkel), nor is ἀγαθῶν to be supplied, from Heb_10:1. These things cast a shadow into the αἰὼν οὗτος, so that the light, as well as the μέλλοντα, standing in the light, are before us. So long as one walks in the shadow, holds to it, he is not in the αἰὼν μέλλων, which began with the appearing of Christ, not to begin first with His parousia (Meyer); for there is added:
But the body is Christ’s (Winer’s Gram. p. 495).—This refers to the presence of the αἰὼν μέλλων, which had already entered. However, he, who still holds to the ordinances of the law, and allows himself to be governed by erring and erroneous men, not by Christ, does not hold to Him, is not yet in the Messianic kingdom and age, as he may and should be. The passage treats of a point of view rather than a point of time. See 1Jn_2:8 [Lange, Comm. p. 53.] “But the body” is in contrast with “shadow,” fulfilment, full substance and life of “the things to come.” Ἐστίν is to be joined to Χριστοῦ; to Him as Head and Lord (Col_2:6; Col_2:19) it belongs; He has the direction of the “things to come,” is the antithesis of τις (Col_2:16). It is neither: ad Christum pertinet, ab eo solo petenda est (Grotius), ex Christo pendet (Storr), appeared in Christ (Huther), nor is σῶμα to be repeated with Χριστοῦ (Bengel), certainly it is not=the Christian Church (Schenkel); as little is σκιά the Jewish Church. [Wordsworth: σῶμά is substantial reality. Alford incorrectly asserts that the Apostle could not thus have spoken, if the ordinance of the Sabbath had been, in any form, of lasting obligation in the Christian Church. Against this view, see Ellicott in loco and his references, also Wordsworth, Sermon 44, Christian Sunday.—R.] The joining of this clause to the following verse (Greek Fathers) is objectionable, because it obviously belongs to the antecedent context, and does not belong to ὑμᾶς.
Against superstitious worship of angels (Col_2:18-19).
Col_2:18. Let no man beguile you of your reward.—Μηδείς corresponds with μή τις Col_2:16, and introduces a warning. [Eadie remarks the uniform use of the singular in these warnings, as contrasted with the plural used in Galatians. “Either he marks out one noted leader, or he merely individualizes for the sake of emphasis.” Probably the latter.—R.] Here too the stress is laid upon the object ὑμᾶς, placed in an emphatic position. Καταβραβευέτω corresponds with κρινέτω (Col_2:16). The word is rare, but Attic (Demosthenes adv. Midiam, c. 25), hence not a Cilician provincialism (Jerome); βραβεύειν is to be a βραβευς [i. e., the awarder of prizes in the games.—R.], to perform such an office, παραβραβεύειν is to do this partially, unjustly, in favor of or against a competitor, καταβραβεύειν denotes definitely the hostile intent against one entitled to the prize. The prize (βραβεῖον, Php_3:14 : “of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus;” 1Co_9:24) is the imperishable crown (1Co_9:25) “of righteousness” (2Ti_4:8; 2Ti_2:5), “of life” (Jam_1:12), “of glory” (1Pe_5:4). Hence it is not to be interpreted as Christian freedom (Grotius) or the honor and prize of true Christian worship (De Wette), nor is the verb = κατακρίνειν (Baehr and others). The following thought is not remote from, but not in, the passage; Ne quis brabeutæ potestatem usurpans atque adeo potestate abutens, vos currentes moderetur perperamque præscribat, quid sequi; quid fugere debeatis, brabeum accepturi (Bengel—similarly Beza). Luther is incorrect: let no one frustrate you in your aim; Vulgate also: nemo vos seducat.
Arbitrarily in humility and worshipping of angels.—θέλων characterizes the design of the false teachers as to its ground. The participle denotes, what is joined to θρησκεία in the compound ἐθελοθρησκεία (Col_2:23): the wilful desiring, having pleasure in “humility and worshipping of angels.” θέλειν ἐν is =חָפֵץ־בְ 1Sa_18:22; 2Sa_15:26; Rom_10:9; 2Co_9:8; Psa_147:10. It is not to be complemented with τοῦτο or τοῦτο ποίειν(=καταβραβεύειν, Meyer). Nor is it to be explained cupide (Erasmus). The former is both a pleonasm and brachylogy at once: the latter is contrary to usage. To join it with ἐμβατεύων (Luther) is inadmissible. [Ellicott follows Meyer and renders: “desiring to do it,” but objects to any imputation of malice.—He characterizes the view supported by Braune (Augustine, Olshausen and many others) as distinctly untenable and contrary to all analogy of usage of θέλειν the New Testament; yet his own interpretation is open to the objections made above. Alford renders: “of purpose,” joining it with καταβραβευέτω, following Theophylact. The interpretation of Meyer, Ellicott, et al., he deems “flat and spiritless;” that of Braune, he terms “a harsh Hebraism—irrelevant.” If the view of θέλειν, given on p. 35, note, be correct, then Alford’s interpretation is inadmissible. Braune’s exegesis accords best with the distinction there made. They arbitrarily, spontaneously, from the evil impulses of their own nature, indulged in these things. This is relevant, for this made them dangerous.—R.] The context indicates that the first substantive, elsewhere used in a good sense (3:12; Eph_4:2; Php_2:3; Act_20:19; 1Pe_5:5), has here a bad sense : false, affected humility, behind which much spiritual pride may hide. The other substantive (θρησκείᾳ) means worship, adoration, James 6:26, 27; Act_26:5 [E. V. “religion.”—R.], the object of which is set forth by the genitive. Comp. Wis_14:27; Wis_11:16; 1Ma_5:6. Winer’s Gram. pp. 176, 233. In the Old Testament the angels repeatedly appeared as mediators between God and man, and as representatives of men with God (Job_5:1; Job_30:23; Zec_1:12; Tob_12:15). In the Testimony of the VII. Patriarchs (Philo) they appear as interceding, helping beings; among the later Jews the opinion is current, that the law was delivered to Moses through angels (Bleek on Heb_2:2). The Fathers refer to the fact that the Jews supplicated angels and councils declare themselves on this point34 (Böhmer in Herzog’s Realencyclop. 4. p. 31). [See Eadie in loco. It was at Colosse that special worship was given in after days to the archangel Michael, for an alleged miracle wrought by him, viz., opening a chasm to receive the river Lycus. And at a council held in the neighboring city of Laodicea, the practice referred to in the text was condemned.—(Conyb. and Hows. Am. ed. II. p. 390, note 2).—R.]—“Humility” is to be regarded as so connected with angel worship, that the latter is proof of the former, since the mediation of angels was claimed in approaching God (Theodoret), or because the Majesty of the Only Begotten demanded it (Chrysostom). It is a mistake to take “humility” in a good sense, but as irony (Steiger and others), or τῶν ἀγγέλων as genitive subjecti (Luther: spirituality of the angels, Schleiermacher, religion of the angels), or to weaken it to studium singularis sanctitatis, or to understand by it demons, demigods (Estius). [“The Catholic interpreters, Estius and A-Lapide, make a strong effort to exclude this passage from such as might be brought against the worship of the saints” (Eadie), but the connection of the two substantives gives it a direct application to this error.—R.]
Intruding into those things which he hath not seen, ἃ μὴ ἐώρακεν [ἐόρακεν] ἐμβατεύων, is a further definition of καταβραβευέτω. The verb [participle] occurs only here; to step upon a place, hence spiritual regions through speculation; it is used of the entrance of the gods and their seating themselves (Passow sub voce); in distinction from ἐμβαίνειν, it denotes a confident, immediate stepping up, which the description of the regions entered (ἃ μὴ ἐόρακεν)—the transcendental—emphatic from position—shows to be unjustifiable. [The E. V. “intruding” is sufficiently accurate, though Braune’s “sich versteigend” is more so.—R.] The negative μή instead of which οὐ occurs also, is correct in the relative clause after μηδείς (Winer’s Gram. p. 448). Without the negative it may be referred to ὁράματα (Act_20:10; Act_20:12; Act_10:3); or ὀράσεις (Act_2:17) with Meyer: but if ὀφθείς (Act_9:17) must also be so understood according to the context, still ἃ ἐόρακεν (comp. 1Jn_4:20) cannot be rightly referred to enthusiastic fancies. [These passages above cited speak of “visions;” to interpret thus would imply either that these visions were in themselves “illusions,” or in their influence became “delusions.” Alford renders: “standing on the things which he hath seen” i. e., “an inhabitant of the realm of light, not of faith;” which as Ellicott observes “is ingenious, but not very plausible or satisfactory.” The difficulty in such interpretations arises from following another than the true reading. The canon respecting lectiones difficiliores may be pushed too far.—R.]
Vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, is the third trait, more closely characterizing “humility.” Εἰκῇ, temere (Rom_13:4) or frustra (1Co_15:2; Gal_3:4; Gal_4:11), is here joined with φυαιούμενος in the former sense. [Ellicott: “bootlessly, without ground or reason.” So Braune: “ohne Ursache.” “Vainly” may imply vanity in the cause or the result; here the former.—R.] On account of its position it cannot be joined with ἐμβατεύων (Steiger and others). His obscurity is groundless, since it rests upon his own mind, is caused by his own spirit (ὑπὸ τοῦ νοός), and the more so, since “the mind” (νοῦς) is determined by, entirely in the service of and belonging to, “the flesh” (τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ), which while unredeemed serves evil (Rom_7:14; Rom_7:25), and commands the “mind,” possesses and rules it, instead of being possessed and ruled by it. Chrysostom: ύπὸσαρκικῆς διανοίας [followed by the E. V., “fleshly mind.”—Meyer: “It must be noticed that the matter is so represented that the σάρξ of the false teacher seems personified (comp. Rom_8:6), as though it had its own νοῦς, under the influence of which he is made proud. The pride of these people consisted in this, that with all their supposed humility, they allowed themselves to fancy, as is generally the case with fanatical tendencies, that they could not be satisfied with the simple knowledge and obeying of the gospel, but could attain to a peculiar, higher wisdom and sanctity.”—R.]
Col_2:19. And not holding the Head.—This is the fourth trait to be connected with the “worshipping of angels,” denying Christ and the church [die Christlichkeit und Kirchlichkeit.]—The object is Christ, to whom the false teachers did not hold fast as Head, hence as before and above all, angels as well. The negative οὐ, not μή as before, denotes a matter of fact (Winer’s Gram. p. 452). Bengel: Qui non unice Christum tenet, plane non tenet: but he may yet belong to the church.—From whom all the body [or the whole body.—R.]—According to the parallel passage, Eph_4:15, ἐξ οὗ refers to Christ, hence is masculine, not neuter. (Meyer) [So Eadie following Meyer: “not personally as Jesus, but really or objectively.” But “the following verse seems to imply distinctly the contrary” (Ellicott).—R.] The preposition which is to be joined with αὔξει denotes the cause from which proceeds what it predicated, viz., the growth, and not a remote one, only conditioning it from without, but indicating the most intimate vital connection between them. “All the body” includes the whole church (Gemeinde) without exception; there is no member that does not derive its growth from the Head. [It is a question whether the reference here is to the body in its entirety, or to the body as including every member. Ellicott and Eadie favor the former view, Alford and Braune the latter, which is preferable, as the whole passage is against false teachers, who did not deny the unity of the church, but slighted the fact that each member “must hold fast the Head for himself” (Alford). There is then the greater reason for taking “from whom” personally. Meyer, followed by Eadie, refers ἐξ οὗ both to the verb and the participles, which reference does not correspond so well with the above views.—R.]
By joints and bands being supplied and knit together, διὰ τῶν ἀφῶν καὶ συνδέσμων ἑπιχορηγούμενον καὶ συν βιβαζόμενον, characterizes the body, the church, as Eph_4:16. The first participle belongs to ἀφῶν, the second to συνδέσμῶν. Both substantives, joined without a repetition of the article, form a category. Ἀφαί are the nerves, σύνδεσμοι the muscles: the former alford help, the latter compactness, firmness. Wherein the assistance consists is not expressly stated, the context only intimating vital activity in general (Meyer), not “nourishment” [E. V.] however, (Grotius). Ἀφαί do not refer to faith (Bengel), σύνδεσμοι to prophets (Theodoret) or believers (Böhmer), for faith is the life and the persons are the members.—[The fact that the two substantives are joined without a repetition of the article, is against the assignment of a participle to each. As Ellicott remarks: “The distinctions adopted by Meyer, et al., according to which the ἁφαί are especially associated with ἐπιχορ., and referred to Faith, the συνδέσ. with συμβ., and referred to Love—are plausible, but perhaps scarcely to be relied upon. As in Eph. the passage does not seem so much to involve special metaphors, as to state forcibly and accumulatively a general truth.”—In the parallel passage, Eph_4:16, Braune seems to interpret ἀφαί, “joints.” To limit it specifically to “nerves,” seems to be incorrect. Eadie: “We may understand it not merely of joints in the strict anatomical sense, but generally of all those means, by which none of the parts or organs of the body are found in isolation.” He is not correct in giving a middle sense to ἐπιχορηγούμενον: “furnished with reciprocal aid.” Both participles are passive; as present they denote “that the process is now going on” (Alford).—R.]
Increaseth with the increase of God, αὔξει τὴν αν̓́ξησιν τοῦ θεοῦ—[lit., “increaseth the increase of God.” Accusative of cognate substantive and genitive auctoris.—R.] By this God is described as He who effects the growth from Christ (1Co_3:6; 1Co_3:12; 1Co_6:18; Winer’s Gram. p. 232). The most appropriate preposition for Christ in this figure is ἐξ, for God ὑπό. Hence it does not refer to growth well-pleasing to God (Calvin), [nor “godly growth,” Conybeare and Howson.—R.] But the folly and danger of the false teachers is sharply marked.
Comprehensive conclusion. Col_2:20-23.
Col_2:20. If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world.—Sketch of their Christian state, in accordance with the context and the preceding passage (Col_2:1-15). Bengel: continuatur illatio v. 16 coepta. Εἰ is a rhetorical “if, as is actually the case” (Winer’s Gram. p. 418). There are here two definitions of “being dead:” how? “with Christ;” to what ? “from the rudiments of the world.” The motive for “being dead” is given in Col_2:11-12, and for “with Christ” in Col_2:19 (the Head) and Col_2:10-15. For the sake of distinctness, and at the same time to mark the “dying” as an emancipation (Bengel: concise: mortui et sic liberati ab elementis), the preposition ἀπό is repeated from the verb, where otherwise the dative would be found (Gal_2:19; Rom_6:2). “The rudiments of the world” are here those rudiments in which they lived before they became “in Christ,” when they were still heathen; they should not fall away into such again, seduced by Judaistic false teachers. See on Col_2:8.—Meyer incorrectly supposes that Christ also was “dead from the rudiments;” he overlooks that Gentile Christians are referred to; Christ is indeed “the end of the law,” but has not to die to it.
Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?—“Why” introduces, emphatically in the form of a question, the conclusion that it was wrong. Comp. Gal_4:8-10. “As living in the world” like “when we were in the flesh” (Rom_7:5), describes their standpoint before conversion, to which they are returning; ὠς denotes the justifiable conclusion and comparison=quippe qui, “as though.” Δογματίζεσθε is the middle (Luther: why do ye allow yourselves to be caught with ordinances?); the verb is=δόγμα τιθέναι, like νομοθετεῖν. It can be neither: one decrees to you (Meyer);35 nor: you lay ordinances upon yourselves (Bleek); they did not do this, nor does it correspond with the situation, while the former does not correspond with the intention of the intensive question, as if it concerned only a sketch of the fact, and not a rousing of the readers against it.
These ordinances are now noted concretely as to their purport: Col_2:21. Touch not, taste not, handle not, μὴἄψῃ, μηδὲγεύαῃ, μήδὲθίγῃς.—The triple reference forming a climax, marks the urgency of the demand for abstinence (Meyer). The reference to Col_2:16 allows the omission of the objects, meat and drink, which are required by the second verb γεύσῃ. It is incorrect to apply “touch not” to sexual pleasure (Flatt); this cannot be justified by 1Co_7:1; 1Ti_4:3, against the context, viz., the former part of Col_2:22. The suppression of the object is not to be accounted for by the fear and dissimulation of the false teachers, who did not name it themselves (Steiger), nor thus: that Paul had not thought on any definite object. The objects he sets forth in paraphrase:
Col_2:22. Which all are for destruction in the consumption, ἄἐστινπά νταεἰςφθορὰντῇἀπο χρήσει—This relative clause sketches the forbidden objects, all of them (ἅ—πάντα); ἐστιν, placed first for emphasis, denotes that their nature is,—“appointed to destruction, perishable” (ἐιςφθοράν), by being used up (τῇἀποχρήσει). This verdict reminds us of Mat_15:17; Mar_7:18-19; 1Co_6:13. Hence these words must be considered the Apostle’s judgment to show, and that not without irony, the perversity of the notion, that through eating and drinking moral detriment originated (Chrysostom: εἰς κόπρον γὰρ ἄπαντα μεταβάλλεται). They cannot be regarded as the words of the false teachers (Vatable, Schenkel), who will not suffer them to be touched, nor as parenthesis36 (Meyer). Nor is ä to be referred to δόγματα, implied in σογματίζεσθε above (Augustine [Barnes] and others), nor is εἰς φθοράν to be explained as moral corruption (De Wette), since it merely describes destruction, decomposition, here of sensuous things. Although ἀποχρῇσει must not be taken as the simple noun, it must however be distinguished from παράχρησις and κατάχρησις, “abuse.” [The view Braune upholds is so generally adopted by modern commentators and so far preferable that it seems unnecessary to notice the others particularly. The practical bearing of the passage is obvious to any, who discover its true meaning. That this true meaning has not always been discovered by American Christians is evident from the fact that some still cite: “Touch not, taste not, handle not,” in support of “total abstinence” from beverages which can intoxicate. Whatever may be the expediency of such a principle, it is one against which, as a binding rule of universal application, this passage, rightly interpreted, might be used. To use it in its favor is contrary to all fair dealing with the word of God,—a wresting of the Scripture, excusable only on the ground of ignorance, if in these days such ignorance be not rather an aggravation.—R.]
After the commandments and doctrines of men, κατὰ τὰ ἐντάλματα καὶ διδασκαλίας τῶν ἀνθρώπων, sets forth a modality of δογματίζεσθε, marking it as in contrast with God’s law and word in Christ, indeed with the law of Moses, beyond which they have gone. “Doctrines” is added in justification of “commandments;” the latter are more restricted, the former more extended; the latter are results, the former set forth the premises and consequences. Mat_15:7; Mar_7:7. [Ellicott: they were submitting to a δογματισμός not only in its preceptive, but even in its doctrinal aspects.—R.]
Col_2:23. Which things have indeed a repute of wisdom.—“Which things” refers to “commandments and doctrines of men,” and denotes, not single commandments, etc., but the whole category of human ordinances. Ἐατὶν λόγον μὲν ἔχοντα σοφίας is a concession (μές), to which the antithesis (δέ) is wanting; still to the very significant λόγος we have the correlate τιμῇ, to λόγον ἔχοντα corresponds ἐν τιμῇ τινι, and on this account to μέν the following οὐκ corresponds. Hence λόγος here must mean “report,” as Luk_5:15; Joh_21:23; Act_11:22. So Herodot. 5, 66 (Grimm, Clavis, sub voce p. 260). Chrysostom: λόγον φησὶν, οὐ δύναμιν, ἄραοὐκ ἀλήθειαν. The Vulgate therefore: rationem habentia, and Luther: “appearance” [E. V.: “show”] are incorrect. [Alford; “possessed of a reputation,”—Ellicott: “do have the repute”—are enjoying the repute of wisdom.—R.] The omission of a clause introduced by δέ is an anacoluthon, but not strange, since the clause is unmistakable (Winer’s Gram. p. 535). ̔ Εστὶνἔχοντα is used instead of ἔχουσιν, to mark the weakness of men in permitting themselves to be so readily deceived and blinded, and contains a charge against such in general rather than against those in Colosse. Bengel improperly joins ἐστίν with πρὸς πλησμονήν, and resolves ἔχοντα into: cum habeant, ut sit incisum; so Schenkel also.
In will-worship, and humility, and unsparingness of the body, ἐν ἐθελοθρησκείᾳ καὶ ταπεινοφροσύνῃ καὶ ἀφειδίᾳ τοῦ σώματος.—“In,” standing only at the beginning, denotes that all three belong together. Compounds with ἐθελο are frequent (see Passow’s Lexicon) and describe, according to the word, something done freely, voluntarily, on one’s own responsibility, arbitrarily, factitiously, affectedly; ἐθελοθρησκεία is self-imposed, arbitrary worship (Col_2:18). The object is not added, because self-evident: God. The false teachers in question would worship Him through the mediation of the adoration of angels. Compare ἐθελοπερισσοθρησκεία, by which Epiphanius (haer. 1, 16) describes the piety of the Pharisees. Ταπεινοφροσύνη, as in Col_2:18, denotes the humility which appeared with ostentation, hence only apparent, external. Ἀφειδία σώματος denotes the unsparing austerity towards the body through ascetic abstinence. Such mortification is based upon contempt of the creatures, false views of matter as the seat of sin. The first substantive denotes the religious aspect of their conduct, the second, the moral in relation to men, the third, the same as respects earthly things. In such ways they gained a repute of wisdom.
In opposition to this repute, the Apostle adds his judgment: not in any honour, οὐκ ἐν τιμῇ τινι. Here belongs έστίν, which follows ἄτινα, in order to contrast with “the repute of wisdom among the people,” the Apostle’s judgment, viz.: the repute is without honorable grounds, without true honor. This is strongly affirmed; there is nothing at all in it which is really honorable; hence “in any honor” is a sharp negation (οὐκ) of will-worship, humility and unsparingness of the body.—To this negative Paul adds a positive statement: [only] to the satisfying of the flesh, πρὸς πλησμοὴν τῆς σαρκός.—The former clause denies “the repute of wisdom” as a just repute; this gives a motive for the negation, in connexion with “unsparingness of the body.” The false doctrine tends (πρός) to a satisfying (in contrast with “unsparingness”) of the fleshly nature (τῆς σαρκός opposed to σώματος). It is incorrect to render: “not giving to the flesh the honor due to its necessities” (Luther and others). Πλησμονή implies blame (Bengel: fere excessum denotat) and cannot=πρόνοια (Rom_13:14). The distinction between τοῦ σώματος and τῆς σαρκός, and the omission of τοῦ σώματος after ἑν τιμῇ τινι must not be overlooked. Grotius singularly deduces praise from this: habent ista rationem non stultam, si adsint cautiones, si sponte ista suscipiantur non abominando ea, quæ deus creavit,—cum ea modestia animi, quæ alios aliter viventes non damnet,—si hoc sibt propositum habeant, dure tractare corpus neque carni obsequi ad saturitalem.—[Braune’s view is that of Meyer, and is to be preferred, 1) as least un-grammatical; 2) as giving the best correlate to μέν; 3) preserving the distinction between σε͂μα and σάρξ; 4) bringing out the bad sense of πλησμονήν and thus conveying the sharp condemnation, that asceticism, while it appears to subdue the body, serves only to gratify the flesh and its evil nature. For other interpretations see Eadie, Alford, Ellicott. The latter agrees most nearly with Braune.—R.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Fasts and Feasts are placed together by the Apostle (Col_2:16), while as a rule fasting and prayer occur together; Act_13:3 : “when they had fasted and prayed;” 14:23: “prayed with fasting;” 1Co_7:5 : “fasting and prayer” (A. B. however omit the former). He forbids the one or the other, as little as Christ (Mat_6:5; Mat_6:16); he does not annul the decree of the apostolic council (Act_15:20; Act_15:28), in which also the ethical and ritual are united. But he opposes first, asceticism which extends to “unsparingness of the body,” secondly, an arbitrary abstinence from the means of nourishment ordained for eating and drinking, demanded equally from all, thirdly, those fasts connected with certain arbitrarily chosen days in the year, month and week. He thus opposes that dualistic view of the world, which does not regard and treat matter as the creature of God, which undervalues the body and its life, and in spite of its “unsparingness of the body” serves only “to the satisfying of the flesh;” he demands the maintenance of individual freedom and would commit all abstinence to the free moral resolution (as Rom_14:2 sq., 1Co_8:1 sq., 1Ti_4:3), and—as far as such abstinence is justified, and may be occasioned or required by internal or external circumstances, by the discipline necessary for the individual, or occurrences that affect him,—he would not have it mechanically and arbitrarily bound to special days, least of all that it should be regarded as of moral merit or as a work of supererogation, transcending or retrieving the purely moral law and moral conduct of life. The Christian should not bind his conscience to men, but only to God’s word and God’s law. Holy days and seasons should be determined by the great facts of salvation and the great acts of God, and not arbitrarily chosen. Thus we must judge both the Romish worship overrun with fasts and saints’ days, and the Methodist and Baptist sects adhering to the Reformed Church. [The author, being a Lutheran, refers to the entire neglect of even such anniversaries as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.—The special reference to the Methodists and Baptists must be confined to Germany,—and indeed’ in this country there is no applicability in his allusion to their adherence to the Reformed Church. It is true that until lately the prevailing practice of many churches in America would fall under the condemnation he hints at, and even now these historic days are observed socially rather than religiously, as holidays rather than holy days. The Lord’s Day has always been kept in a truer position. I may add that “fasting” is practically ignored as a Christian duty from extreme antagonism to arbitrary fast days, but while the American Church has allowed “no man to judge” “in eating,” it has permitted strict judgment “in drinking” to lay a burden on the conscience. Paul places both in the same category (Col_2:16). However expedient abstinence may be, this passage (Col_2:16; Col_2:20-23) forbids the infringement on Christian freedom which is quite common.—R.]
2. The distinction and the connexion of the Old and New Testament economy are here described. The former is “the shadow of things to come” (Col_2:17) and “the rudiments of the world” (Col_2:20), which are given in heathenism as well as Judaism; contrasted with the former, the New Testament economy is “the body,” with the latter it is “perfection” (τελείωσις). Christianity is called “the power of God and wisdom of God” (1Co_1:24), at once to distinguish it from Judaism and to describe it as pre-announced, pre-intimated, prepared for in the same. The law is done away, not because it is in itself of no value, but because man is unable to fulfil it, obtains only in Christ, what he cannot attain without Him through the law. See Schmid, Bibl. Theol. II. 233–235; 322–325. Catholic and Reformed confessions fail in this respect; they regard the gospel as a nova lex, and permit the distinction between the Old Testament and New Testament to fall into the background: the former is Pharisaical, the latter spiritualistic. [The position of the law in the Reformed confession does not seem to me to warrant this remark. See the Heidelberg Catechism, Ques. 2, 91, 92. Belgic conf., xxiv. xxv. Perhaps others are more open to this, charge. See also Form of Concord, VI.—R. ]
[3. The observance of the Lord’s Day cannot be affected by the warning of Paul (Col_2:16). It is certain that the persons who were judging them, were pressing the duty of observing the Jewish Sabbath, not the Christian Lord’s Day. It is equally certain that the observance of a weekly day of rest is written in God’s physical and social laws for man, as plainly as in the Decalogue. Nor can we escape the conclusion that the fourth Commandment is but a reminder of a previous institution, so that even those who might contend that the whole Mosaic law is abrogated, as a guide to Christian life, do not escape this enactment. But since the Christian would live gratefully, he still finds the rule in God’s “holy, just and good” moral law, and sees in his very frame as well as in the frame-work of society, an additional reason for appropriating to “rest in God’s service,” one day in seven, rejoicing therein, since it now marks the great fact of his Lord’s resurrection, and since his Master has Himself explained how it should be observed.—R.]
4. The importance of the doctrine respecting angels (Philippi: Kirchl. Glaubenslehre I. p. 279 sq.), without which the doctrine respecting Satan remains incomprehensible, is as great as the danger from the rationalistic denial of angels, springing from a Sadduceean view of the world, and the Romish adoration of angels, growing out of Essenic and dualistic heresy. The latter soon appeared in the Church. In Laodicea (at the council held between 343 and 381), it was forbidden in the 35th Canon. Ambrose first encouraged it (observandi sunt angeli). Augustine warns against it: imitandos eos potius, quam invocandos, and refers to the distinction between cultus religiosus and non religiosus. This, the second council of Nicæa (787) turned in favor of the adoration of angels, and the distinction established between λατρεία, invocation, and τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, δουλεία, pious veneration, must now serve as a support for the heathenish adoration of angels and worship of the saints (Conc. trid. sess. 25. Cat. Rom_3:2; Rom_8:10). Our symbols maintain: angelos a nobis non esse invocandos, adorandos (Articles of Schmalkald ii. 2). [See Reformed Confessions and catechisms generally.—R.]
5. Christ the Head of the Church, is for her the foundation of all religious and moral life: she needs no other mediator with God.—
6. The Church is a living organism, not an establishment or institution, It is a unity of many members; it rests upon an act and work of God in Christ, is from God and to God, has as its end education for perfection and glory hereafter; and possesses, in the word and sacraments and the proper administration of the same, suitable means for the attainment of this end. As to its inmost being, it is a vital relation of the congregation [Gemeinde] to the ever present, spiritual-physically present Lord (Harless. Ethik. 6. Aufl. p. 564). [By “Ceistleiblich”—which is untranslatable, Braune means the presence of Christ in the eucharist according to the Lutheran view. Vital union with Christ the Head is not less insisted upon by those who hold the really Calvinistic view.—R.] It is an organization (but not the source), for the facilitating and furthering of Christliness [Christlichkeit,], and the sense of this fellowship founded and maintained by Christ with the corresponding conduct is Churchliness [Kirchlichkeit], which is indissolubly connected with Christliness. As Church and Churchdom [Kirche und Kirchenthum] are so distinguished, that the former, as a Divine act, legally and rightly, takes form in the latter, so there is a two-fold Churchliness; one holding fast to the revelation of grace and ordinance of salvation in Christ, the other adhering to the legal forms of a special Churchdom, which has been and is being humanly and historically developed. The former has its source in the invisible Church, the fellowship of the Spirit, the latter in the visible church, which is the fellowship of law, and hence only human, secondary, accessory; it is not the realization of the idea of the Church, but merely a help and external support (Stahl: Rechts-und Staats lehre, p. 164). All ecclesiastical canons non imprimunt credenda, sed exprimunt credita. But in thus distinguishing, rightly, the ordinances of salvation and of the Church, Christliness and Churchliness, and the latter again in this two-fold manner, care must be taken not to undervalue the latter, as well as not to overvalue it.
7. The principle of Christian liberty especially and of Christian life in general is, that one neither makes nor permits to be made an arbitrary law, and so exercises his Christianity upon all that is created, ordinances as well as gifts, that the creature is used in humble obedience to God’s will, without the fleshly nature exalting itself. Asceticism degenerates into mere mechanical morality, casuistic hair-splitting about the divine law, an externalizing of self-discipline and self-exertion, a stirring up of spiritual pride. Under austerity respecting externals is concealed effeminacy with regard to heart-emotions, and in the unsparing plaguing of the body the flesh is fondled.
[8. The connection of the two warnings. There is instruction in the connection of precepts in Paul’s writings. Here are two warnings, one against fleshly legality, the other against worship of angels, both condemned as having a “show of wisdom”—but tending only to the satisfying of the flesh. The connection is not obvious, yet side by side the two errors have existed with the same result. In germ at Colosse, in full flower in the medieval church, and in modern times, in America especially, fanatical binding of the conscience respecting articles of diet and drink, and “intruding into things not seen,” craving for other “spiritual manifestations” than those coming from the Head, have taken root and flourished in the same localities, together with “a show of wisdom” and an intense “satisfying of the flesh.” Error has its affinities and its unchanging law of development no less than truth.—R.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Christ wants no legal man, who through zeal in good works will earn the love of God, but a spiritual man, whose faith through grateful love to God is diligent in every good word and work.—In winter fruit trees look more alike than in spring, summer and autumn; where life and liberty are wanting, there is monotony in faith and walk; while lifeless liberty makes every diversity prominent.
Starke:—That is the devil’s way, to judge and make conscience where none should be made, and to make none where it should be. Let us hold to Christ alone, and put no man or creature as mediator with Him; but hold to Him truly too, so that we have His witness, whether we have received of His Spirit to abide in us.—Will worship is worthless.
Rieger:—Sincerity, which seeks God and clings to His Word, seizing salvation in Christ, as if it were I only in the world, whom it concerned; unity, joining itself to all who are called and pressing to the same goal with the same serviceableness; freedom, which binds and is bound by none in things that can neither hinder nor further me in the ordained course.—Each one has a corner in his heart where rash prejudices can hide, to break out swiftly in natural and spiritual things, so that we can quickly stumble at one thing, or thoughtlessly depreciate another.—[Self-will makes even humility, a vain puffing up.—R.]
Gerlach:—While one lives in the world, he serves its rudiments. Of these God made use in His law to typify in that time of childhood higher, eternal truths. But when the full light of truth has risen, to serve these is to be in bondage to the world. All this is renewed in Christendom, whenever Christ, as the only Mediator is supplanted or thrown into the background by other sub-mediators.
Schleiermacher:—The right way can only be the one way, in the likeness of the Divine Love to maintain the bond of love among each other, and in common with those who are our brethren to seek and to lead a spiritual life.—[The difficult wisdom of the gospel, which so few attain: rightly distinguishing the internal from the external, substance from shadow, spirit from letter.—R.]
Passavant:—Habit and custom, the regular return of religious exercises and festivals, regular Sabbaths, periodical communion seasons, even set hours of meditations, even family worship otherwise so necessary in addition to public worship,—how easily do all degenerate into empty form and external posture without spirit and life.—He who does not hold to the Head, but holds rather to the thoughts of his own wisdom and the dreams of his own fancy, relying upon systems of human philosophy, upon highly gifted minds or on the poesy of the human imagination, desiring to seek and find there all that is noble and exalted, salvation, joy, heaven itself, thereby denies and disowns the one great Reconciler and Redeemer, His Truth, His Love, His Right, and His Glory: he loses in his folly and ingratitude the whole wealth of the Word of God; he takes the shadow instead of the body, the sheen for the true light, a self-made life for the true Life, God’s Life in us.
Heubner:—The Christian should maintain freedom of conscience. He should not depend on others, but follow his own conscience, not permitting himself to be bound to non-essential exercises. A superstitious over-estimate of things indifferent always leads away from Christ.—Young Stilling, although indulging in many fancies about spirits, remained faithful to the biblical principle, that all such attempts to open up the invisible world about him are culpable and opposed to the present probationary state of man. A Christian, clinging to Christ is secure against all such foolery, which would divert him from his aim.
Wilhelm.—The holy simplicity of the Christian. It consists herein 1) that he keeps his goal uninterruptedly in view: 2) guards against all going according to his own choice: 3) studies true humility at heart.—Lehman:—Against what must we guard if we would not miss the mark of our heavenly calling? 1) Against our own choice in the matter of our blessedness; 2) against false humility; 3) against carnal mind. Claus:—Two great dangers on the path to the heavenly goal; 1) the error of human ordinances; 2) the pride of our own heart.
[Burkitt:—Abstinence is sinful when men abstain from some meats, upon pretence of holiness and conscience, as if some meats were unclean, or less holy in their own nature than others, or as if simple abstinence at any time were a thing acceptable to God in itself, without respect to the end for which it is sometimes required.—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.—Henry: Col_2:19. 1) Jesus Christ is not only a Head of Government over the church, but a Head of vital influence to it. 2) The body of Christ is a growing body—R.]
[Eadie:
Col_2:16. Sensations of spiritual joy are not to be restricted to holy days, for they thrill the spirit every moment, and need not wait for expression till there be a solemn gathering, for every instant awakes to the claims and the raptures of religion.
Col_2:19. The church can enjoy neither life nor growth, if, misunderstanding Christ’s person or undervaluing His work, it have no vital union with Him.
Col_2:20. Christ is the Head and to Him alone do we owe subjection.
What mean they? Canst thou dream there is a power
In lighter diet at a later hour
To charm to sleep the threatenings of the skies,
And hide past folly from all-seeing eyes? (Cowper).
Col_2:23. When Diogenes lifted his foot on Plato’s velvet cushion and shouted “thus I trample on Plato’s pride,” the Athenian sage justly replied “but with still greater pride.” The Apostle utters a similar sentiment. These corporeal macerations, as history has shown tend to nurse licentiousness in one age, and a ferocious fanaticism in another.—R.]
[Barnes:
Col_2:16. It is the solemn and sacred duty of all Christians to remit all attempts to make ceremonial observances binding on the conscience.
Col_2:18. “Pride may be pampered while the flesh grows lean.”—Wordsworth: Col_2:18. Pride in its worst form; Pride dressed up in the disguise of lowliness. And this is the besetting sin of the human heart, which is more puffed up by false humility than by open, pride.—R.]
[Schenkel:—The danger of constituting oneself a judge of the consciences of others; 1) why it is so near us; 2) why it must be so earnestly contended against.—Christ the only mediator between God and man: It is not humility, but pride, if we seek another.—The officious seeking after revelations outside the Revelation: 1) how dangerous; 2) how foolish it is.—The danger of spiritual pride; 1) Its source—the flesh; 2) its effects—inflation.—Who has died with Christ, can no longer live in the world: 1)The reason, 2) the power of this truth.—Will-worship: 1) a self-deception, 2) a deceiving of others.—Interference with allowable enjoyment by ordinances of men: 1) the wrong inherent in such interference; 2) the impurity to which it leads.—R.]
Footnotes:
[24]Col_2:16.—[Βρώσει ἢ ἐνπόσει, the act of eating or of drinking. See Exeg. Notes. The reading is doubtful: א. A. C. D. F. K. L. Rec. most versions; Lachmann, Tischendorf (ed. 7), Ellicott, Wordsworth read ἤ. B. Tischendorf (ed. 2). Alford, Braune: καί. The critical defence of the former reading is: “the Common association of βρῶσις and πόσις would very naturally suggest the displacement of ἤ for the more usual καί”—of the latter: καί would readily be altered to ἤ to suit the rest of the sentence. Both are so plausible, that the reading ἤ can safely be adopted on uncial authority. As to the meaning as affected by the readings, see Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[25]Col_2:16.—[Σαββάτων, literally “sabbaths,” here=the singular.—R.]
[26]Col_2:17.—א. A. D. E. F. read ἅ; B. has ὅ, which is to be preferred as the more difficult reading. [So Lachmann, Meyer. Alford is undecided, but gives ὅ in his text. Ellicott considers the reading ὅ not improbable, but insufficiently attested. Here also it is best to follow the mass of uncial MSS., with Rec. Tischendorf, and others. E. V. “which are” is correct in that case.—The reading Χριστοῦ (τοῦ omitted), Tischendorf, Ellicott, is preferable. Hence “Christ’s,” poss. gen. Eadie, Ellicott, Rhemish, Lachmann and Alford insert τοῦ (א. A. B. C).—R.]
[27]Col_2:18.—[Θέλων. Braune renders “willkürlich.” There is such diversity in interpretation that nothing more definite could be given in the text, and this will serve to show the one point of agreement among our modern commentators, viz., that the E. V. is incorrect.—R.]
[28]Col_2:18.—Μή is added in א., where it was originally wanting, as in A. B. and others; but it is not to be omitted, [Οὐκ is also found, but μή is the proper form of the negative here. See Exeg. Notes. The reading of Rec, has preponderant external authority, 6 MSS. nearly all cursives: supported by most versions, Tischendorf, Ellicott. Lachmann, Meyer, Alford reject the negative,—and this view affects the exegesis of the latter two.—R.]
[29]Col_2:19.—[Ἐξ οὗ, masculine, Christ the Personal Head, hence “whom;” “which” in E. V. doubtless stands for “whom.”—R.]
[30]Col_2:20.—[Οὖν of Rec. and the article before Χρ. “have the authority of all the MSS. against them and are properly rejected by all modern editors” (Ellicott).—R.]
[31]Col_2:22.—[The E. V. is indistinct,—the rendering given above presents the interpretation of Braune, Eadie, Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth. The parenthesis should perhaps include this last clause only.—R.]
[32]Col_2:23.—[Ἀφειδίᾳ, “unsparingness.” So Eadie, Ellicott (“unsparing treatment”), Alford, Davies, and older English versions similarly.—R.]
[33] Col_2:23.—[This is the interpretation of Braune, Meyer, Ellicott and others. See Exeg. Notes. More modifications might well be made, but this slight change sufficiently indicates the view upheld below.—R.]
[The text of this abort passage, containing not less than 9 ἅπαξ λεγόμενα, is remarkably well established and free from variations.—R.]
[34][Barnes erroneously asserts: there is no evidence that any class of false teachers would deliberately teach that angels were to be worshipped.—R.]
[35][Meyer (followed by Alford) regards the verb as passive, finding here, not a reproach but a warning of the readers, who have not yet been led away. In that case, “as living in the world” indicates the wrong view which the false teachers take of the Christian position. There is much force in his objection to the common view, as implying that they were living as if in the world, a reproach which does not correspond with the tone of the rest of the Epistle. However the implication may only be, that if they allowed this to continue, they would be returning to the world.—R.]
[36][The parenthesis of the E. V. seems unnecessary. It was probably designed to connect “ordinances” and “after the commandments of men” more closely. If any clause be parenthetical, it is this one, and Meyer, Alford and Ellicott so regard it, agreeing entirely, however, with the exegesis of Braune.—R.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Blotting out--Greek, "Having wiped out"; coincident in time with…
Blotting out--Greek, "Having wiped out"; coincident in time with "having forgiven you" (Col 2:13); hereby having cancelled the law's indictment against you. The law (including especially the moral law, wherein lay the chief difficulty in obeying) is abrogated to the believer, as far as it was a compulsory, accusing code, and as far as "righteousness" (justification) and "life" were sought for by it. It can only produce outward works, not inward obedience of the will, which in the believer flows from the Holy Spirit in Him (Rom 3:21; Rom 7:2, Rom 7:4; Gal 2:19).
the handwriting of ordinances--rather, "IN ordinances" (see on Eph 2:15); "the law of commandments contained in ordinances." "The handwriting" (alluding to the Decalogue, the representative of the law, written by the hand of God) is the whole law, the obligatory bond, under which all lay; the Jews primarily were under the bond, but they in this respect were the representative people of the world (Rom 3:19); and in their inability to keep the law was involved the inability of the Gentiles also, in whose hearts "the work of the law was written" (Rom 2:15); and as they did not keep this, they were condemned by it.
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that was against us . . . contrary to us--Greek "adversary to us"; so it is translated, Heb 10:27. "Not only was the law against us by its demands, but also an adversary to us by its accusations" [BENGEL]. TITTMANN explains the Greek, "having a latent contrariety to us"; not open designed hostility, but virtual unintentional opposition through our frailty; not through any opposition in the law itself to our good (Rom 7:7-12, Rom 7:14; Co1 15:56; Gal 3:21; Heb 10:3). The "WRITING" is part of "that which was contrary to us"; for "the letter killeth" (see on Co2 3:6).
and took it--Greek, and hath taken it out of the way" (so as to be no longer a hindrance to us), by "nailing it to the cross." Christ, by bearing the curse of the broken law, has redeemed us from its curse (Gal 3:13). In His person nailed to the cross, the law itself was nailed to it. One ancient mode of cancelling bonds was by striking a nail through the writing: this seems at that time to have existed in Asia [GROTIUS]. The bond cancelled in the present case was the obligation lying against the Jews as representatives of the world, and attested by their amen, to keep the whole law under penalty of the curse (Deu 27:26; Neh 10:29).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv14–23 4. The legalism sought to be imposed is abolished,…
4. The legalism sought to be imposed is abolished, Col_2:14.
14. Blotting out—Rather, having blotted out. The interpretations of this verse are very various, and many of their difficulties arise, as we think, from a failure to observe its logical connexion. We conceive it to be a simple statement that God had wiped out the whole ritual system. Circumcision could not, therefore, be required as a condition of spiritual life, and they themselves had found that life without it.
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Handwriting of ordinances—The Mosaic ceremonial law: the obligatory bond, whose numerous minute decrees were difficult and oppressive.
Contrary to us— Peter expressed the same when he styled it “a yoke… which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.” Act_15:10. We cannot interpret it of the decalogue, for that was not abolished by Christ’s death, as was the ritual, whose provisions pointed to and were thus fulfilled in him. It was, doubtless, the best possible system for the period of its enactment; but it had accomplished its purpose, and the time had come for it to pass away. Its precepts were obliterated; it was as if nailed to the cross, and thus, as a document, destroyed. As the cross was the instrument of death, when Christ died it died. Ritual circumcision is, therefore, at an end.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–23 14. blotting out] cancelled (Lightfoot).—The act of “forgiving” is…
14. blotting out] cancelled (Lightfoot).—The act of “forgiving” is described under vivid imagery. Cp. Act_3:19; and see Psa_51:1; Psa_51:9; Psa_109:14; Neh_4:5; Isa_44:22; Jer_18:23.
the handwriting] The bond, note-of-hand. The original word, cheirographon, meaning an autograph, is used often in this sense, and oftener (transliterated) in Latin than in Greek. So here the Latin Versions have chirographum decreti.—What is “the bond”? The question is best answered under the next words.
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of ordinances] Lit., “with relation to ordinances”; based on them, conditioned by them. “The bond written in ordinances”; R. V.—These “ordinances” (dogmata) are not rites but, as the Greek word always means in the N.T., orders, decrees. The reference cannot be solely to the “decrees” of the Jewish Law, for here the case of all believing sinners is in view. The decrees are rather that of which that Law was only one grand instance, the Divine precept of holiness, however conveyed, whether by revelation or by conscience (see Rom_2:12-15). Man’s assent, however imperfect, to the lightness of that precept, is as it were his signature of obligation to “the bond”; a bond which his sin has made to be a terribly adverse engagement.
Lightfoot points out that the Greek commentators “universally” interpret the words rendered “of ordinances” quite differently; “by the dogmata, or doctrines (of the Gospel)”; the Gospel being the means of the abrogation of the Law. But this, as he shews, is (a) alien to the context, (b) out of harmony with an important parallel word in Col_2:20 below (see notes on that verse), (c) not supported by the usage (elsewhere in N.T.) of the Greek word dogma.
contrary] directly opposed (Lightfoot). The Greek is a single compound word, giving by its form the thought of a close and grappling opposition. The broken Law becomes an active enemy of the transgressor.
and took it out of the way] Quite lit., and it (emphatic) He hath taken out of the midst; from between us and God, as a barrier to our peace.—“He hath taken”:—the tense indicates the lasting and present result of the decisive act of atonement.
nailing it to his cross] Lit., to the Cross.—See Col_1:20 for a previous allusion to the Cross.—The Lord was “made a curse for us” (Gal_3:13), “made sin for us” (2Co_5:21), in other words, treated as Transgression personified, in His atoning death. He there discharged our bond, and thus cancelled it, tore it up as it were; and the tearing up is vividly described as the piercing of it with the nails which had affixed Him, our Satisfaction, to the Cross.—There seems to be no evidence for the existence of any legal custom, such as the nailing up an abrogated decree in public, which could have suggested this language. It comes wholly from the Crucifixion.
Observe carefully the free use in Scripture of legal and commercial imagery to convey great aspects of the truth of our salvation.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–23 (14) Blotting out the handwriting—i.e., cancelling the bond which…
(14) Blotting out the handwriting—i.e., cancelling the bond which stood against us in its ordinances. The “handwriting” is the bond, exacting payment or penalty in default. (Comp. Phm_1:19, “I Paul have written it with mine own hand; I will repay it.”) What this bond is we see by Eph_2:15, which speaks of “the law of commandments in ordinances,” there called “the enmity slain by the cross.” On the meaning of “ordinances” see Note on that passage. The metaphor, however, here is different, and especially notable as the first anticipation of those many metaphors of later theology, from Tertullian downwards, in which the idea of a debt to God, paid for us by the blood of Christ, as “a satisfaction,” is brought out. The Law is a bond, “Do this and thou shalt live.” “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” On failure to do our part it “stands against us.” But God for Christ’s sake forgives our transgressions and cancels the bond. It is a striking metaphor, full of graphic expressiveness; it is misleading only when (as in some later theologies) we hold it to be not only the truth, but the whole truth, forgetting that legal and forensic metaphors can but imperfectly represent inner spiritual realities.
And took it.—Properly, and He (Christ) hath taken it away. The change of tense is significant. The act of atonement is over; its effect remains.
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Nailing it to his cross.—At this point the idea of atonement comes in. Hitherto we have heard simply of free forgiveness and love of God. Now the bond is viewed, not as cancelled by a simple act of divine mercy, but as absolutely destroyed by Christ, by “nailing it to His cross.” It has been supposed (as by Bishop Pearson) that there is allusion to some custom of cancelling documents by the striking of a nail through them. But the custom is doubtful, and the supposition unnecessary. Our Lord “redeemed us from the curse of the Law,” by His death, “being made a curse for us” (Gal_3:13). St. Paul boldly speaks of that curse as a penalty standing against us, and as nailed to the cross with Himself, so to be for ever cancelled in the great declaration, “It is finished.” If any more definite allusion is to be sought for, we might be inclined to refer to the “title” on the cross, probably nailed to it. Such title declared the explanation of the sufferer’s death. The cancelled curse of the Law was just such an explanation of the great atoning death, and the title, declaring His mediatorial kingdom, showed the curse cancelled thereby.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv14–23 Having blotted out the bond (that was) against us…
Having blotted out the bond (that was) against us with (or, written in) decrees, which was opposed to us (Eph_2:14-16; Rom_3:9-26 Rom_7:7-14; 2Co_5:19; Gal_3:10; 1Co_15:56; Act_13:38, Act_13:39) The ancients commonly used wax tablets in writing, and the flat end of the pointed stylus drawn over the writing smeared it out (expunged) and so cancelled it (comp. Act_3:19; Psa_51:9; Isa_43:25) "God," not "Christ," is the subject of this verb, which stands in immediate sequence to those of vers. 12, 13 (comp. 2Co_5:19) It is the receiver rather than the offerer of satisfaction who cancels the debt: in Eph_2:15. (comp. Col_1:22) a different verb is used. Ceirografon ("handwritten;" a word of later Greek, only here in the New Testament) is used specially of an account of debt, a bond signed by the debtor"s hand (see Meyer and Lightfoot). This bond (with its decrees) can be nothing other than "the law" (Eph_2:14-16; Act_13:38, Act_13:39; Rom_3:20 Rom_7:25; Gal_3:21, Gal_3:22, etc.) not, however, the ritual law, nor even the Mosaic Law as such (as Meyer contends), but law as law, the Divine rule of human life impressed even on Gentile hearts, (Rom_2:14, Rom_2:15) to which man"s conscience gives its consent, (Rom_7:16, Rom_7:22) and yet which becomes by his disobedience just a list of charges against him (so Neander and Lightfoot; see the latter on. Gal_2:19 Exo_24:3 andgmasin Deu_27:14-26, indeed, illustrate this wider relation of Divine law to the human conscience generally. Toiv do) is dative of reference either to kaq hJmwn ("against us:" qualifying or explanatoryin respect of its decrees) or to the verbal idea contained in ceirgorafon ("written in," or "with decrees"). The former explanation (that of Winer and Ellicott) is preferable. The Greek Fathers made it instrumental dative to ejxaleiyav, understanding by these dogmata the doctrines (dogmas) of the gospel by which the charges of the Law against us are expunged.
But this puts on dogma a later theological sense foreign to St. Paul, and universally rejected by modern interpreters. In the New Testament (comp. (Luk_2:1; Act_16:4; Heb_11:23) as in classical Greek, dogma is a decree, setting forth the will of some public authority (comp. note on dogmatizw, ver. 20). The added clause, "which was opposed to us," affirms the active opposition, as "against us" the essential hostility of the decrees of God"s law to our sinful nature (Rom_4:15; Gal_3:10: comp. Rom_7:13, Rom_7:14) The emphasis with which St. Paul dwells on this point is characteristic of the author of Romans and Galatians. Ypenantiov occurs besides only in Heb_10:27; the prefix uJpo implies close and persistent opposition (Lightfoot).
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And he hath taken it out of the midst, having nailed it to the cross (Col_1:20-22; Eph_2:18; 2Co_5:19; Rom_3:24-26 Rom_5:1, Rom_5:2; Gal_3:13; Heb_1:3; Joh_1:29; 1Jn_4:10) A third time in these three verses (12-14) we note the transition from participle to coordinate finite verb; and here, in addition, the aorist tense passes into the perfect ("hath taken"), marking the finality of the removal of the Law"s condemning power: (Act_13:39) comp. the opposite transition in Col_1:26, Col_1:27. The moral deliverance of ver. 11 is traced up to this legal release, both contained in our completeness in Christ (ver. 10). The subject is still "God." Cancelling the bond which he held against us in his Law, God has forver removed the barrier which stood between mankind and himself. (2Co_5:19) Christ"s place in this work, already shown in Col_1:18-23, (in its relation to himself) is vividly recalled by the mention of the cross. And the abolition of the Law"s condemnation is finally set forth by a yet bolder metaphor"having nailed it to the cross." The nails of the cross in piercing Christ pierced the legal instrument which held us debtors, and nullified it; (see Gal_3:13 comp.; sav Gal_2:19, 20 Rom_7:4-6) Proshlw may suggest the further idea of nailing up the cancelled document, by way of publication. At the cross all may read, "There is now no condemnation" (compare the "making a show" of ver. 15; also Rom_3:25; Gal_3:1) (For vers. 11-14, compare concluding remark on Col_1:14)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 18, 20 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances.
Col_2:14
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances.
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I. The handwriting.
1. It is often the practice of Scripture to liken a sin to a debt: whence remitting it is equivalent to pardoning it (Mat_6:12; cf. Luk_11:4). Indeed the Chaldees and Syrians used the words sinner and debtor interchangeably. The reason is that there is a resemblance between the two. As the one obliges the debtor to payment, the other obliges the sinner to punishment. As a debt gives the creditor power over his debtor, so sin consigns the offender to God.
2. The word handwriting signifies an acknowledgement signed by us that we owe a certain sum and bind ourselves to pay. It is an authentic testimony of our debt, and makes our body and goods liable. The handwriting of the text is the instrument of our condemnation, and subjects us to the justice of God.
3. This handwriting was the old law, as the word ordinances, the following context, and the purpose of the apostle to show that Judaism was not binding on the Colossians, prove.
4. This handwriting in itself is good and profitable, but it became contrary through sin.
(1) It serves to convict us, as an obligation produced in judgment stops the mouth of an unfaithful debtor.
(2) It is against our inclinations, which are lawless.
(3) It threatens punishment, which we feel to be deserved and which we cannot evade.
II. What is done with it? It is made void by the Cross.
1. It is blotted out, as it is usual with men when a debt is paid to efface the name of the creditor and the amount he owed. So God has erased the handwriting of this debt which was written in His law for our consciences.
2. The means employed is some fluid, as ink, which is drawn over the page; so our obligation is made void by the effusion of Christs blood.
3. Men who are exact not only efface their debtors writings but tear them up, that no sign of the debt may remain. So God has so effaced the handwriting against us that not even the erasures appear; it is rent by the nails of the cross.
Conclusion:
1. This furnishes us with a clear proof of Christs satisfaction. If Christs death is merely an example the law could sustain no injury, and if these words can be applied to Him they can be applied to other martyrs; but who would dare to do that?
2. This shows us the error of the doctrine of human merit: for God can exact nothing now that Christ has paid all.
3. The enjoyment of this privilege wrought on the cross is conditional upon faith. (J. Daille.)
The handwriting blotted out
I. What is meant by handwriting?
1. Opinions are various; yet all agree in this that something is intended which by force of testimony may prove us guilty before God. Some assert it to be--
(1) The covenant of God with Adam (Gen_2:17), for this being violated, Adam and his posterity were held guilty of death as by a bond.
(2) The stipulation of the Jews (Exo_19:7-8), by which they bound themselves to perfect obedience, by the non-performance of which they might be justly condemned by their own hand.
(3) The remembrance of our sins in the Divine mind and in our own conscience (Isa_43:25), by which we are convicted, as by a bond. The Divine law says, Thou shalt love the Lord, etc. Conscience suggests, I have not done so, and am, therefore, cursed.
(4) Ceremonial rites which testified to guilt, circumcision to depravity, purifications to the filthiness of sin, sacrifices to the heinousness of guilt.
2. I explain it to mean the moral law binding to perfect obedience and condemning defect, laden with rites as appendages.
II. How is it against us?
1. As to the moral law, it is holy, just, and good; nevertheless it has become deadly to us through sin (Rom_7:12-13), because--
(1) It propounds decrees contrary to human nature (Rom_7:12-13).
(2) It arraigns, convicts, and brings us in guilty of sin (Rom_3:20).
(3) It denounces against us the sentence of condemnation (Gal_3:10).
2. As to ordinances, they were contrary, because
(1) They were almost infinite as to number, and most burdensome as to observance Hence the appeal, Gal_5:1.
(2) By their signification and testimony. For although they seemed to promise the destruction of sin, yet there entered into them a confession rather than expiation thereof.
III. How it is made void.
1. Universally and sufficiently as it respects God; because by the blood of Christ such satisfaction is made to God that according to His own justice He is engaged to acquit those debtors who flee by faith to the Deliverer.
2. Particularly and efficaciously when it is blotted out from the conscience of those who lay hold of God by faith (Rom_5:1). There is no peace to a man who sees himself overwhelmed in debt and entangled by a bond; but when Christs deliverance is accepted the soul enters into peace.
3. Notice the beautiful gradation. Not content with telling us we are forgiven, Paul subjoins that the handwriting is blotted out; but lest any should think that it is not so, but that a new charge may be raised, he adds it is taken out of the way; and lest it should be thought to be preserved somewhere, and may yet be preferred, he says it is nailed to the Cross, rent in pieces.
Conclusion: We learn--
1. From the handwriting.
(1) Since every man through it is guilty of death, how dreadful is the condition of those who trample on the blood by which alone the handwriting can be blotted out. God will require from them the uttermost farthing.
(2) We see the insane pride of those who think they can satisfy God, yea, pay Him more than is due by works of supererogation. But what need then of blotting out the handwriting by the Cross?
2. From its contrariety.
(1) The depravity and corruption of our nature; for at its institution it was friendly and wholesome.
(2) The error of those who would restore ceremonies and rob us of our liberty in Christ.
3. From the abolition.
(1) Since it is deprived of its condemning force we infer that it still retains its directing force, and so we have not a licence to sin but a motive to obey (Luk_1:74-75).
(2) Since the comfort of a troubled conscience consists in its being blotted out, we must labour to maintain by faith not only that Christ has procured that but that it is blotted out as respects ourselves. A debtor does not consider himself safe until he has seen with his own eyes that his bond is cancelled. (Bp. Davenant.)
Our indictment cancelled by the Cross
Liberty is the way to true life for man. A slave has nothing to live for: but proclaim his freedom, and he becomes another being. So with the man whom God sets free. Quickening from God comes in forgiveness of sins.
I. The indictment against us--the law of God as expressed in the ten commandments and written in the heart (Rom_2:14).
1. Here we hate mans moral obligation, of which men everywhere have been more or less conscious. Moral sense of the two great duties of love to God and our neighbour is everywhere diffused. The handwriting is so on every mans soul that he knows and feels that some things ought to be done while others are forbidden as wrong. Many attempt to efface the handwriting, as well as to defy it, but that only confirms the fact that it exists in all the fulness of its claim.
2. This handwriting is against us because we have broken it. The law is for the lawless, and its verdict is only against the sinful. It commands our supreme love to God, and we have not loved Him, This is the debt we owe to God as our Creator and Father; we have not paid it and now cannot.
3. It is also contrary to us. The terms are not exactly equivalent. The one expresses silent condemnation, the other a positive hostility. A man may owe a debt he cannot pay, and this fact is an obligation against him, even though there be no positive demand for payment. But if by the process of dunning the debt is often brought before him, and he is unpleasantly reminded of it, then the obligation is not only against him, it is contrary to him: it disturbs his peace and fills him with dread. So the Divine law acting on the law of our mind is constantly reminding us of our obligation, and is hostile to our peace. Its spirituality is against us, for we are carnal; its purity, for we are unholy; its justice, for we have kept back Gods due. Such is the indictment, that every mouth may be stopped (Rom_3:19).
II. The indictment cancelled. The verdict against sinful men is erased or wiped out. This idea often recurs in Scripture in reference to sin--blot out all my iniquities.
2. It is taken out of the way; not that the law and moral obligation are abolished, but the verdict is removed so that it cannot be adduced for our condemnation. Literally it is taken out of the midst, as if the handwriting had lain between God and His people--a barrier to their approach to Him, and to their peace with Him.
3. The means. Nailing to the cross and so destruction. Its condemning force was exhausted on Christ, so that it is powerless against all who are in Him. This is our discharge: the law has been fulfilled, and its finding against us for ever taken away. (J. Spence, D. D.)
The Cross the death of law
I. The handwriting or bond.
1. Law means primarily the ceremonial law which was being pressed on the Colossians. The early controversies on this matter are difficult for us to understand. It is harder to change customs than creeds, and religious observances live on, as every Maypole on a village green tells us, long after the beliefs which animated them are forgotten. So there was a party Who refused the admittance of Gentile converts to the Church except through the old doorway of circumcision. This was the point at issue between Paul and these teachers.
2. But the modern distinction between moral and ceremonial had no existence in Pauls mind, nor in the Old Testament, where we find the highest morality and the merest ritual inter-stratified. The law was a homogeneous whole.
3. And the principles laid down are true about all law. Law, as such, is dealt with by Christianity in the same way as the God-given code.
4. Law, Paul tells us, is antagonistic. It stands opposite, frowning at us and barring our road.
(1) Is it then become our enemy because it tells us the truth? This conception is a strange contrast to the rapturous delight of Psalmists in it. Surely Gods greatest gift to man is the knowledge of His will, and law is beneficent, a light, and a guide, and even its strokes are merciful.
(2) Nevertheless the antagonism is very real. As with God, so with law--if we be against Him, He cannot but be against us. We make Him our dearest friend or our foe. The revelation of duty to which we are not inclined is ever unwelcome. Law is against us because--
(a) It comes like a taskmaster bidding us do, but neither putting the inclination into our hearts nor the power into our hands.
(b) The revelation of unfulfilled duty is the accusation of the defaulter.
(c) It comes with threatenings and foretastes of penalty. Thus, as standard, accuser, and avenger, it is against us.
(3) We all know this. Each of us has seen that apparition like the sword-bearing angel that Balaam saw, blocking our path when we wanted to go frowardly in the way of our heart. The law of the Lord should be sweeter than honey, etc., but the corruption of the best is the worst, and we can make it poison. Obeyed, it is as the chariot of fire to bear us heavenward; disobeyed, it is an iron car crushing all who set themselves against it.
II. Its destruction in the cross.
1. The Cross ends the laws power of punishment. Paul believed that the burden and penalty of sin had been laid on Christ, and trusting ourselves to the power of that great sacrifice, the dread of punishment will fade from our hearts, and the law will have to draw the bolts of the prison and let the captive go free.
2. The Cross is the end of the law as ceremonial. The Jewish ritual had the prediction of the Great Sacrifice for its highest purpose. When the fruit has set there is no more need for petals. We have the reality and do not need the shadow.
3. The Cross is the end of the law as moral rule. Of course it is not meant that Christian men are freed from the obligations of morality, but that we are not bound to do the things contained in the law because they are there. Duty is duty now because we see the pattern of conduct and character in Christ. The weakness of law is that it has no power to get its commandments obeyed; but Christ puts His love in our hearts, and so we pass from the dominion of an external commandment into the liberty of an inward spirit. The long schism between duty and inclination is at an end. So a higher morality ought to characterize the partakers of the life of Christ. Law died with Christ on the cross that it might rise and reign in our inmost hearts. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Cancelled and nailed up
There is a beautiful oriental custom which illustrates the Atonement. When a debt had to be settled either by payment or forgiveness, the creditor took the cancelled bond and nailed it over the door of him who had owed it, that all passers by might see that it was paid. So there is the Cross, the door of grace, behind which a bankrupt world lies in hopeless debt to the law. See Jesus our bondman and brother, coming forth with a long list of our indebtedness in His hand. He lifts it up where God and angels and men may see it, and there as the nail goes through His hand it goes through the bond of our transgressions to cancel it for ever. Come to that Cross! Not in order that you may wash away your sins by your tears or atone for them by your good works, or efface them by your sophistries and self-deceptions. But come rather that you may read the long black list that is against you, and be pierced to your heart by sorrow that you have offended such a Being; and then that lifting up your eyes you may see God turning His eyes at that same cross at which you are looking, and saying, I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, etc. (New Testament Anecdotes.)
The law is against sinners
There are stronger things in the world than force. There are powers more difficult to overcome than strong or brazen gates. Suppose we found a prisoner condemned to die, and locked up in his ceil, and we were to ask ourselves how he could be saved from execution. There would appear great difficulty in getting him out of prison. That iron door, with its great bolt; that high window, with its guard of strong bars; those thick, strong walls; those heavy gates outside; that watchful jailer, how impossible it seems to overcome them all! Yet these are not the only difficulties, nor the greatest. There is another thing, stronger than all these, holding the poor prisoner to death: there is the sentence of the law. For, unless he would himself become a criminal, no man dares to help the condemned one out. Get the sentence repealed, and the other difficulties are removed. (J. Edmond, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 20 Chapter 2 Part 5
Chapter 2 Part 5
THE CROSS THE DEATH OF LAW AND THE TRIUMPH OVER EVIL POWERS
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Col_2:14-15 (R.V.)
The same double reference to the two characteristic errors of the Colossians which we have already met so frequently, presents itself here. This whole section vibrates continually between warnings against the Judaising enforcement of the Mosaic law on Gentile Christians, and against the Oriental figments about a crowd of angelic beings filling the space betwixt man and God, betwixt pure spirit and gross matter. One great fact is here opposed to these strangely associated errors. The cross of Christ is the abrogation of the Law; the cross of Christ is the victory over principalities and powers. If we hold fast by it, we are under no subjection to the former, and have neither to fear nor reverence the latter.
I. The Cross of Christ is the death of Law. The law is a written document. It has an antagonistic aspect to us all, Gentiles as well as Jews. Christ has blotted it out. More than that, He has taken it out of the way, as if it were an obstacle lying right in the middle of our path. More than that, it is "nailed to the cross." That phrase has been explained by an alleged custom of repealing laws and cancelling bonds by driving a nail into them, and fixing them up in public, but proof of the practice is said to be wanting. The thought seems to be deeper than that. This antagonistic "law" is conceived of as being, like "the world," crucified in the crucifixion of our Lord. The nails which fastened Him to the cross fastened it, and in His death it was done to death. We are free from it, "that being dead in which we were held."
We have first, then, to consider the "handwriting," or, as some would render the word, "the bond." Of course, by law here is primarily meant the Mosaic ceremonial law, which was being pressed upon the Colossians. It is so completely antiquated for us, that we have difficulty in realising what a fight for life and death raged round the question of its observance by the primitive Church. It is always harder to change customs than creeds, and religious observances live on, as every maypole on a village green tells us, long after the beliefs which animated them are forgotten. So there was a strong body among the early believers to whom it was flat blasphemy to speak of allowing the Gentile Christian to come into the Church, except through the old doorway of circumcision, and to whom the outward ceremonial of Judaism was the only visible religion. That is the point directly at issue between Paul and these teachers.
But the modern distinction between moral and ceremonial law had no existence in Pauls mind, any more than it has in the Old Testament, where precepts of the highest morality and regulations of the merest ceremonial are interstratified in a way most surprising to us moderns. To him the law was a homogeneous whole, however diverse its commands, because it was all the revelation of the will of God for the guidance of man. It is the law as a whole, in all its aspects and parts, that is here spoken of, whether as enjoining morality, or external observances, or as an accuser fastening guilt on the conscience, or as a stern prophet of retribution and punishment.
Further, we must give a still wider extension to the thought. The principles laid down are true not only in regard to "the law," but about all law, whether it be written on the tables of stone, or on "the fleshly tables of the heart" or conscience, or in the systems of ethics, or in the customs of society. Law, as such, howsoever enacted and whatever the bases of its rule, is dealt with by Christianity in precisely the same way as the venerable and God given code of the Old Testament. When we recognise that fact, these discussions in Pauls Epistles flash up into startling vitality and interest. It has long since been settled that Jewish ritual is nothing to us. But it ever remains a burning question for each of us, What Christianity does for us in relation to the solemn law of duty under which we are all placed, and which we have all broken?
The antagonism of law is the next point presented by these words. Twice, to add to the emphasis, Paul tells us that the law is against us. It stands opposite us fronting us and frowning at us, and barring our road. Is "law" then become our "enemy because it tells us the truth"? Surely this conception of law is a strange contrast to and descent from the rapturous delight of psalmists and prophets in the "law of the Lord." Surely Gods greatest gift to man is the knowledge of His will, and law is beneficent, a light and a guide to men, and even its strokes are merciful. Paul believed all that too. But nevertheless the antagonism is very real. As with God, so with law, if we be against Him, He cannot but be against us. We may make Him our dearest friend or our foe. "They rebelled therefore He was turned to be their enemy and fought against them." The revelation of duty to which we are not inclined is ever unwelcome. Law is against us, because it comes like a taskmaster, bidding us do, but neither putting the inclination into our hearts, nor the power into our hands. And law is against us, because the revelation of unfulfilled duty is the accusation of the defaulter and a revelation to him of his guilt. And law is: against us, because it comes with threatenings and foretastes of penalty and pain. Thus as standard, accuser, and avenger, it is-sad perversion of its nature and function though such an attitude be-against us.
We all know that. Strange and tragic it is, but alas! it is true, that Gods law presents itself before us as an enemy. Each of us has seen that apparition, severe in beauty, like the sword-bearing angel that Balaam saw "standing in the way" between the vineyards, blocking our path when we wanted to "go frowardly in the way of our heart." Each of us knows what it is to see our sentence in the stern face. The law of the Lord should be to us "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb," but the corruption of the best is the worst, and we can make it poison. Obeyed, it is as the chariot of fire to bear us heavenward. Disobeyed, it is an iron car that goes crashing on its way, crushing all who set themselves against it. To know what we ought to be and to love and try to be it, is blessedness, but to know it and to refuse to be it, is misery. In herself she "wears the Godheads most benignant grace," but if we turn against her, Law, the "daughter of the voice of God," gathers frowns upon her face and her beauty becomes stern and threatening.
But the great principle here asserted is the destruction of law in the cross of Christ. The cross ends the laws power of punishment. Paul believed that the burden and penalty of sin had been laid on Jesus Christ and borne by Him on His cross. In deep, mysterious, but most real identification of Himself with the whole race of man, He not only Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, by the might of His sympathy and the reality of His manhood, but "the Lord made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all"; and He, the Lamb of God, willingly accepted the load, and bare away our sins by bearing their penalty.
To philosophise on that teaching of Scripture is not my business here. It is my business to assert it. We can never penetrate to a full understanding of the rationale of Christs bearing the worlds sins, but that has nothing to do with the earnestness of our belief in the fact. Enough for us that in His person He willingly made experience of all the bitterness of sin: that when He agonised in the dark on the cross, and when from out of the darkness came that awful cry, so strangely compact of wistful confidence and utter isolation, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" it was something deeper than physical pain or shrinking from physical death that found utterance- even the sin-laden consciousness of Him who in that awful hour gathered into His own breast the spear points of a worlds punishment. The cross of Christ is the endurance of the penalty of sin, and therefore is the unloosing of the grip of the law upon us, in so far as threatening and punishment are concerned. It is not enough that we should only intellectually recognise that as a principle-it is the very heart of the gospel, the very life of our souls. Trusting ourselves to that great sacrifice, the dread of punishment will fade from our hearts, and the thunder clouds melt out of the sky, and the sense of guilt will not be a sting, but an occasion for lowly thankfulness, and the law will have to draw the bolts of her prison house and let our captive souls go free.
Christs cross is the end of law as ceremonial. The whole elaborate ritual of the Jew had sacrifice for its vital centre, and the prediction of the Great Sacrifice for its highest purpose. Without the admission of these principles, Pauls position is unintelligible, for he holds, as in this context, that Christs coming puts the whole system out of date, because it fulfils it all. When the fruit has set, there is no more need for petals; or, as the Apostle himself puts it, "when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part is done away." We have the reality, and do not need the shadow. There is but one temple for the Christian soul-the "temple of His body." Local sanctity is at an end, for it was never more than an external picture of that spiritual fact which is realised in the Incarnation. Christ is the dwelling place of Deity, the meeting place of God and man, the place of sacrifice; and, builded on Him, we in Him become a spiritual house. There are none other temples than these. Christ is the great priest, and in His presence all human priesthood loses its consecration, for it could offer only external sacrifice, and secure a local approach to a "worldly sanctuary." He is the real Aaron, and we in Him become a royal priesthood. There are none other priests than these. Christ is the true sacrifice. His death is the real propitiation for sin, and we in Him become thank offerings, moved by His mercies to present ourselves living sacrifices. There are none other offerings than these. So the law as a code of ceremonial worship is done to death in the cross, and, like the temple veil, is torn in two from the top to the bottom.
Christs cross is the end of law as moral rule. Nothing in Pauls writings warrants the restriction to the ceremonial law of the strong assertion in the text, and its many parallels. Of course, such words do not mean that Christian men are freed from the obligations of morality, but they do mean that we are not bound to do the "things contained in the law" because they are there. Duty is duty now because we see the pattern of conduct and character in Christ. Conscience is not our standard, nor is the Old Testament conception of the perfect ideal of manhood. We have neither to read law in the fleshy tables of the heart, nor in the tables graven by Gods own finger, nor in mens parchments and prescriptions. Our law is the perfect life and death of Christ, who is at once the ideal of humanity and the reality of, Deity.
The weakness of all law is that it merely commands, but has no power to get its commandments obeyed. Like a discrowned king, it posts its proclamations, but has no army at its back to execute them. But Christ puts His own power within us, and His love in our hearts; and so we pass from under the dominion of an external commandment into the liberty of an inward spirit. He is to His followers both "law and impulse." He gives not the "law of a carnal commandment, but the power of an endless life." The long schism between inclination and duty is at an end, in so far as we are under the influence of Christs cross. The great promise is fulfilled, "I will put My law into their minds and write it in their hearts"; and so, glad obedience with the whole power of the new life, for the sake of the love of the dear Lord who has bought us by His dearth, supersedes the constrained submission to outward precept. A higher morality ought to characterise the partakers of the life of Christ, who have His example for their code, and His love for their motive. The tender voice that says, "If ye love Me, keep My commandments," wins us to purer and more self-sacrificing goodness than the stern accents that can only say, "Thou shalt-or else!" can ever enforce. He came "not to destroy, but to fulfil." The fulfilment was destruction in order to reconstruction in higher form. Law died with Christ on the cross in order that it might rise and reign with Him in our inmost hearts.
II. The Cross is the triumph over all the powers of evil.
There are considerable difficulties in the interpretation of Col_2:15; the main question being the meaning of the word rendered in the Authorised Version "spoiled," and in the R.V, "having put off from Himself." It is the same word as is used in Col_3:9, and is there rendered "have put off"; while a cognate noun is found in verse 11 of this chapter (Col_2:11), and is there translated "the putting off." The form here must either mean "having put off from oneself," or "having stripped (others) for oneself." The former meaning is adopted by many commentators, as well as by the R.V, and is explained to mean that Christ, having assumed our humanity, was, as it were, wrapped about and invested with Satanic temptations, which He finally flung from Him forever in His death, which was His triumph over the powers of evil. The figure seems far-fetched and obscure, and the rendering necessitates the supposition of a change in the person spoken of, which must be God in the earlier part of the period, and Christ in the latter.
But if we adopt the other meaning, which has equal warrant in the Greek form, "having stripped for Himself," we get the thought that in the cross God has, for His greater glory, stripped principalities and powers. Taking this meaning, we avoid the necessity of supposing with Bishop Lightfoot that there is a change of subject from God to Christ at some point in the period including Col_2:13 -an expedient which is made necessary by the impossibility of supposing that God "divested Himself of principalities or powers"-and also avoid the other necessity of referring the whole period to Christ, which is another way out of that impossibility. We thereby obtain a more satisfactory meaning than that Christ in assuming humanity was assailed by temptations from the powers of evil which were, as it were, a poisoned garment clinging to Him, and which He stripped off from Himself in His death. Further, such a meaning as that which we adopt makes the whole verse a consistent metaphor in three stages, whereas the other introduces an utterly incongruous and irrelevant figure. What connection has the figure of stripping off a garment with that of a conqueror in his triumphal procession? But if we read "spoiled for Himself principalities and powers," we see the whole process before our eyes-the victor stripping his foes of arms and ornaments and dress, then parading them as his captives, and then dragging them at the wheels of his triumphal car.
The words point us into dim regions of which we know nothing more than Scripture tells us. These dreamers at Colossae had much to say about a crowd of beings, bad and good, which linked men and matter with spirit and God. We have heard already the emphasis with which Paul has claimed for his Master the sovereign authority of Creator over all orders of being, the headship over all principality and power. He has declared, too, that from Christs cross a magnetic influence streams out upwards as well as earthwards, binding all things together in the great reconciliation-and now he tells us that from that same cross shoot downwards darts of conquering power which subdue and despoil reluctant foes of other realms and regions than ours, in so far as they work among men.
That there are such seems plainly enough asserted in Christs own words. However much discredit has been brought on the thought by monastic and Puritan exaggerations, it is clearly the teaching of Scripture; and however it may be ridiculed or set aside, it can never be disproved. But the position which Christianity takes in reference to the whole matter is to maintain that Christ has conquered the banded kingdom of evil, and that no man owes it fear or obedience, if he will only hold fast by his Lord. In the cross is the judgment of this world, and by it is the prince of this world cast out. He has taken away the power of these Powers who were so mighty amongst men. They held men captive by temptations too strong to be overcome, but He has conquered the lesser temptations of the wilderness and the sorer of the cross, and therein has made us more than conquerors. They held men captive by ignorance of God, and the cross reveals Him; by the lie that sin was a trifle, but the cross teaches us its gravity and power; by the opposite lie that sin was unforgivable, but the cross brings pardon for every transgression and cleansing for every stain. By the cross the world is a redeemed world, and, as our Lord said in words which may have suggested the figure of our text, the strong man is bound, and his house spoiled of all his armour wherein he trusted. The prey is taken from the mighty and men are delivered from the dominion of evil. So that dark kingdom is robbed of its subjects and its rulers impoverished and restrained. The devout imagination of the monk painter drew on the wall of the cell in his convent the conquering Christ with white banner bearing a blood-red cross, before whose glad coming the heavy doors of the prison house fell from their hinges, crushing beneath their weight the demon jailor, while the long file of eager captives, from Adam onwards through ages of patriarchs and psalmists and prophets, hurried forward with outstretched hands to meet the Deliverer, who came bearing His own atmosphere of radiance and joy. Christ has conquered. His cross is His victory; and in that victory God has conquered. As the long files of the triumphal procession swept upwards to the temple with incense and music, before the gazing eyes of a gathered glad nation, while the conquered trooped chained behind the chariot, that all men might see their fierce eyes gleaming beneath their matted hair, and breathe more freely for the chains on their hostile wrists, so in the worldwide issues of the work of Christ, God triumphs before the universe, and enhances His glory in that He has rent the prey from the mighty and won men back to Himself.
So we learn to think of evil as conquered, and for ourselves in our own conflicts with the world, the flesh, and the devil, as well as for the whole race of man, to be of good cheer. True, the victory is but slowly being realised in all its consequences, and often it seems as if no territory had been won. But the main position has been carried, and though the struggle is still obstinate, it can end only in one way. The brute dies hard, but the naked heel of our Christ has bruised his head, and though still the dragon
"Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail,"
his death will come sooner or later. The regenerating power is lodged in the heart of humanity, and the centre from which it flows is the cross. The history of the world thenceforward is but the history of its more or less rapid assimilation of that power, and of its consequent deliverance from the bondage in which it has been held. The end can only be the entire and universal manifestation of the victory which was won when He bowed His head and died. Christs cross is Gods throne of triumph.
Let us see that we have our own personal part in that victory. Holding to Christ, and drawing from Him by faith a share in His new life, we shall no longer be under the yoke of law, but enfranchised into the obedience of love, which is liberty. We shall no longer be slaves of evil, but sons and servants of our conquering God, who wooes and wins us by showing us all His love in Christ, and by giving us His own Son on the Cross, our peace offering. If we let Him overcome, His victory will be life, not death. He will strip us of nothing but rags, and clothe us in garments of purity; He will so breathe beauty into us that He will show us openly to the universe as examples of His transforming power, and He will bind us glad captives to His chariot wheels, partakers of His victory as well as trophies of His all-conquering love. "Now thanks be unto God, which always triumphs over us in Jesus Christ."
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.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv14–23 14. Blotting out the handwriting. The Revision says, “The…
14. Blotting out the handwriting. The Revision says, “The bond.” That is, the written law of ordinances; the law of Jewish rites. This was “blotted out,” erased, removed. Against us. Especially in the sense that they made Gentiles aliens and strangers to the covenant, and without God and hope. Nailing it to his cross. When the Jews nailed Jesus to the cross they drove the nails into their own law. The old dispensation was ended; the blood of the new covenant was shed from the wounds of the nails.
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.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv16, 18, 20 Col_2:16. Let no man therefore judge you.—They could not…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Col_2:16. Let no man therefore judge you.—They could not well prevent an adverse judgment being given on their disregard of what the ritualists thought to be of supreme moment, but they could refuse to argue about such trifles.
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Col_2:17. Shadow … body.—The relationship is indicated here of the old ceremonial worship to the worship of the Spirit. To confound shadow and substance, or mistake the shadow for the substance, has ever been the fatal error of ritualism.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Col_2:16-17
The Ceremonial and the Real in Religion.
After dealing with the speculative theories so busily propagated by the false teachers at Colossæ, the apostle descends from the height of his lofty argument, and with incomparable force sweeps away the whole group of errors which overrated an excessive ritualism and insisted on a rigorous asceticism. The existence of the ceremonial in religion is a confession of the imperfection of our nature; and the more rudimentary the ceremonial, the lower it supposes our condition. The ceremonial foreshadows the real, and is intended to help in attaining it. In the nature of things, therefore, the ceremonial is but temporary. When it puts man in possession of the real it vanishes. The shadow is absorbed in the substance. To compel man to find salvation in the ceremonial, when he already possesses the real, is a retrogression and an injustice. The liberty of the gospel places the believer above the slavery of external ordinances, and furnishes him with a law—the law of a christianised conscience—as to their use or neglect.
I. That the ceremonial in religion can form no just basis for individual condemnation.—“Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat,” etc. (Col_2:16). The Mosaic law enforced certain injunctions concerning eating and drinking. It gave minute directions as to the animals that were to be eaten, making a distinction between the clean and the unclean. As to drinking, the priests were strictly forbidden the use of wine on the eve of solemn public duty; and the vow of the Nazarites required entire abstinence from the fruit of the vine. The tendency of the Jews was to multiply these distinctions and prohibitions, and to exalt them into undue importance. The reference to special days embraces the collective periodical feasts and sacred seasons of the Levitical ritual—the yearly, monthly, and weekly celebrations. The term holy day would include the festivals of the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles respectively. The new moon alludes to the monthly celebrations mentioned (Num_10:10; Num_28:11). The Sabbath days refer to the weekly solemnities and services of the seventh day. The Jews assumed that the obligation of these regulations was permanent, and their observance essential to the salvation of the Christian believer. The gospel teaches that the observance or non-observance of these ceremonial rites is no just ground for judging each other. We are not justified in condemning any one for neglecting them, or to think any better of one who reverently observes them. The essence of religion does not consist in the outward form, but in the inward spirit—not in the ceremonial, but in the real. “Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Col_2:17).
II. That the ceremonial in religion is typical of the real.—“Which are a shadow of things to come” (Col_2:17). Ceremonies have their place in the culture of mankind, and in their legitimate sphere they are important. They are adapted to the infant stage in the development of the race. They sketch out the bold, rough outlines of truths that are in a half-formed, embryotic state. They are shadows projected across the disc of our mental vision—of grand realities which are ever advancing into clearer view. They are typical of the existence and certain manifestation of deeper and unchangeable truths. They are predictive of things to come. The great yearly festival of the Passover typified the forgiveness of sins by the shedding of the precious blood of Christ. The Pentecost, or feast of the firstfruits, sets forth the sustenance and ample provision God has made for the soul. The feast of the Tabernacles was a significant reminder of God’s providential guidance and fatherly care of human life. The new moon, or first day of the month, with its usual service, impressed on the minds of the people the truth that Jehovah, the Ruler of the seasons, was the God of providence as well as of creation. The weekly Sabbath, with its grateful rest, was expressly instituted to commemorate the rest of God after the exercise of His creative energy. Then the ordinary sacrifices were doubled, and the shewbread renewed, to indicate that God is the source and sustenance of our life. And so the whole Mosaic law was a type and presage of the gospel. The spiritually enlightened look through the outward and visible symbol to the great truth signified. The ceremonial is valuable only as it conducts to the real.
III. That the ceremonial in religion is abolished and rendered nugatory by the real.—“But the body is of Christ” (Col_2:17). When the substance appears, the shadow is swallowed up. As the shadows are to the body, so were the types and ceremonies of the law to Christ. They were figures of evangelical blessings; but the truth, the reality, and abiding substance of them are found in the person, work, and salvation of Christ. All the grand truths prefigured by the ancient Mosaic ritual are embodied in Christ. He gives the fullest personal representation of Jehovah as the God of nature, providence, and redemption, at once the Author and the Ruler of the spiritual life. In Christ, therefore, as the substance and antitype, all shadow and symbol disappear. It is a dangerous infatuation to snatch at the shadow and cling to it, when we may embrace and rest in the sufficiency of the substance. This is to restore the cancelled handwriting and nullify the splendid triumph of the cross. In Christ the ceremonial is effete, powerless, dead. He only is the changeless, eternal, all-satisfying real.
Lessons.—
1. Learn to exercise the spirit of Christian forbearance in external observances.
2. Be careful not to rest in the ceremonial.
3. Christ alone can satisfy the deepest craving of the soul.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Col_2:16-17. The Shadow and the Substance of the Sabbath.
I. The transient shadow which has passed away.—The Sabbath as a sign between God and the Israelites, marking them off from all other nations by its observance—as a mere Jewish institution.
II. The permanent substance which cannot pass.—“The body is of Christ”—the Spirit of Christ is the fulfilment of the law. To have the Spirit of Christ is to have fulfilled the law. Apply this to Sabbath observance.—F. W. Robertson.
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.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v16 16. “Let no one judge you in meat or…
ARGUMENT 12
VISIBLE RELIGIONS: CARNAL AND COUNTERFEIT
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16. “Let no one judge you in meat or in drink, or in participation of a feast, or of the new moon or of Sabbaths.” The old law of restriction on meats was nailed to the cross, universal liberty peculiar to the gospel dispensation, the typical significations of “clean” and “unclean” superseded in the spiritual dispensation of entire sanctification; meanwhile we are to live hygienically and harmonically with the endless diversity of variant constitutions and climates. On the drink problem we should all be Nazarites unto the Lord, as they were the holiness people of the old dispensation, and most radical teetotalers relative to all intoxicants. Coffee and tea are admissible under hygienical restrictions. I much enjoy the privilege of abstinence from all nervines. As to festivals, be sure that you follow the Lord. Do not hold them in the house of God. (1Co 11:22.) “Sabbaths,” in the original, is in the plural number, having prophetic reference doubtless to the controversy now prevailing on that subject. In Mat 18:1, the Greek reads, “At the dawn toward the first of the Sabbaths,” confirming the conclusion that both days were recognized at the time of the writing; i.e., the Jewish Sabbath, which was the last day of the week, and the Christian Sabbath; the first day of the week, so memorialized by our Lord’s resurrection as ever afterward to be denominated the Lord’s day. The Christian Church began all Jews, in a century eliminating the Jewish element and becoming Gentiles. Of course the apostles and pentecostal converts kept the Jewish Sabbath as well as the Lord’s day, till the Jewish element evanesced after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, A.D. 73. There are fundamental reasons arising out of the genius of the gracious economy, which justify the change from the last to the first day. The law says, “Work first, and then rest,” and if you do not finish your work, you shall not rest. Hence, the pertinency of the last day under the law dispensation. The gospel says, “Rest first, and then you will be in good fix to do your work,” as a well rested man will do about ten times as much work as a tired man. Besides, we have clear and positive proof of the change, and the observance of the first day by the primitive Christians. The bloody persecution inaugurated by Nero, in which Paul lost his head and Peter was crucified, lasted three hundred years, during which martyrs’ blood flowed like rivers. When a student in college, I read the Roman historians, Sallust, Pliny, and Seutonius, who lived and wrote during those bloody centuries. As they were heathens, having no sympathy with Christianity, they are certainly impartial witnesses to the current events of the times. In their simplicity and candor they chronicle their historic sketches of the Christians, describing them as a strange, bigoted, fanatical sect, the followers of one Jesus, who was crucified under the reign of Tiberius and the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate at Jerusalem, whom they certify to have risen from the dead, and they worship him as a God, though the good emperors had done their utmost to reconcile these fanatical people, even proposing to confer the apotheosis upon Jesus Christ, thus adopting him as one of their own gods, to be worshipped along with Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, Venus, Minerva, and Diana. But these incorrigible fanatics treat with utter contempt all of the good old Roman gods, obstinately refusing to worship any god except Jesus Christ. In their simplicity they described the persistent efforts of the emperors to correct and loyalize this disturbing element in the empire.
Then they proceed to describe the arraignment, trial, and martyrdom of the Christians. When persons were suspected of being Christians, they were arrested and arraigned before a civil magistrate. Then they asked them the question, “Dominicum servasti?” “Have you kept the Lord’s day?” The answer came promptly, “Christianus sum,” “I am a Christian,” “Intermittere non possum,” “I am not able to omit it.” This is positive and unequivocal proof that they kept the first day of the week, which, from the apostles, was called the Lord’s day. If Saturday had been the day, they would have asked them, “Sabbaticum servasti,” “Have you kept the Sabbath day?” The very fact that they never asked them if they had kept the Sabbath day, but always, “Have you kept the Lord’s day?” is unequivocal proof that they kept the first day of the week. While we have this clear and unequivocal assurance of the change from the seventh to the first day, simultaneously with the change from the Jewish to the Christian dispensation, we would subjoin,
“If you have any conscientious scruples that you ought to keep Saturday as a holy Sabbath, we exhort you to satisfy those convictions in the observance of that day. In that case, you will keep both days, as you must keep Sunday, conservatively of the conscience of Christendom.” (1Co 8:12.)
Thus you will keep both days, the former pursuant to your own conscience and the latter the conscience of the Lord’s people. An easy way to settle the whole matter, and sweep controversy from the field, is for you to get sanctified wholly, and walk with Jesus in the beauty of holiness. Then you will have seven Sabbaths in the week, instead of one. The history of the apostolic Church during the early centuries utterly upsets the allegation that the Emperor Constantine, who was not converted till the fourth century, made the change from the seventh to the first day; while the fiction that the popes did it is still more at random, as there never was a pope till the seventh century. Doubtless, Constantine and the popes, like all other ecclesiastical leaders, frequently sent out edicts exhorting the people to keep the Christian Sabbath. There is no more reason why we should Judaize on the Sabbath dogma than that we should go back to the Jewish dispensation on other things. God wants holy hearts. In that case, all days will be holy. It is the wildest fanaticisrn to magnify holy days, instead of holy hearts.
17. “Which things are a shadow of the things to come.” These Old Testament institutions all symbolize the glorious spiritual experiences of the pentecostal dispensation. Sabbath is a Hebrew word, and means rest. It symbolizes the perfect repose of the sanctified soul in Jesus. It is an awful mistake to keep the eye always on the shadow and miss the substance, like Aesop’s dog in the fable, walking through the creek with a piece of meat in his mouth, and, seeing his shadow in the water, thinking it was another dog carrying a piece of meat, leaped at the shadow, dropping his meat to get the other, and, losing all, came out of the water meatless and hungry. If you have perfect rest in Jesus, you have an everlasting Sabbath in your soul. If you have not got the soul-Sabbath, the devil will get after all of your zeal about days.
“But the body is of Christ”— that is the thing for you to settle—is that you are a bona fide member of the New Testament Church; i.e., the Divine Ecclesia, who, responsive to the call of the Holy Ghost, have come out of the world, and separated themselves unto God. This blood-washed Church of the First-born is called the body of Christ. If you are saved and sanctified, and thus a bona fide member of the body of Christ, the day problem, along with all other symbolisms, will take care of itself.
18. “Let no one, pursuant to his own will, rob you of your crown in humiliation and worship of the angels.” Then the Church, which had been kept pure by martyr blood and fire three hundred years, during which she pushed her conquest to the ends of the earth, and soon would have prepared the world for her Lord’s return, received the sudden uplift into power and riches through the conversion of Constantine, the Roman Emperor, she soon plunged headlong into the darkness and secularism of Roman Catholicism, and set up the worship of angels, to which Paul alludes: “Thrusting in those things which he has seen, being vainly puffed by the mind of his depravity.” Here we see a sweeping condemnation against all visible religions as consequently carnal, the true being invisible and spiritual. Not a solitary apostle ever preached in a church edifice, the Jews and pagans throughout the world making a great pomp and show with fine buildings. One hundred and fifty years rolled away before the Christians erected a house of worship. I sometimes feel that they made a mistake in ever building a house, and localizing the worship of God. Solomon’s temple signified the sanctified heart. Jesus certifies that neither at Jerusalem nor in Samaria is the true worship, but in the humble, sanctified heart. The first trend into apostasy and idolatry is always through a materialistic religion. Christendom is this day flooded with the idolatry of materialism, spirituality being more and more superseded by materiality, as the Churches, like Judaism and Romanism, go deeper into apostasy. All the paganistic Churches of the present day, with a thousand millions of souls, are the apostasy of the patriarchal dispensation; Jews and Mohammedans, two hundred and fifty millions; of the modern Roman Catholics two hundred and sixty millions; while one hundred and fifty millions of Protestants are following them at racehorse speed on the downward way to idolatry and diabolism. They all traveled the same way, originally deflecting from a purely spiritual and invisible into material and visible forms, ceremonies, temples, shrines, musical instruments, etc.
19. “Not holding the head.” Here the prophetic eye of Paul sees a great man at the head of the Church, leading the people in the pompous rites and ceremonies of a visible worship, with fine house, splendid choir, pipe- organ, and Official Board, and utterly destitute of salvation. “Not holding the head;” i.e., has no connection with Christ, and utterly ignorant of his saving power. Ecclesiastical leaders on this line are too many to be counted. Their name is legion. O how the present age is flooded with the fulfillment of these wonderful latter-day prophecies, which flashed continually from Paul’s inspired pen! How deplorable to see myriads of preachers blindly and ignorantly fulfilling these prophecies! “From which the whole body, through joints and ligaments supplied and cemented together, increaseth the increase of God.” Here we have a beautiful affirmation of the universal oneness of the Lord’s Church. There is no harmony in Satan’s kingdom. The miseries of the damned are constantly augmented and awfully intensified by the universal disharmony, perturbation, and bitter conflicts in hell. It is equally true on earth; war, bloodshed, strife, and disharmony universally characterize the kingdom of Satan. The world is belted with sectarian Churches, rivaling each other in visible pomp and pageantry, and material power and aggrandizement, amid universal rivalry, competition, and disharmony; while the Church of God is an invisible spiritual entity, consisting of blood-washed souls dispersed in all the earth and millions in heaven, all not only perfectly harmonious but identical in spirit, each individual identified with Christ as the branch in the vine, and all receiving the same life-blood flowing out from the heart of Jesus. Union there can never be, unless that we be one in Jesus,—one as he is one in God, in spirit, and in disposition. This the Holy Scriptures teach. It is plain without an exposition.
20. “If you are dead along with Christ from the institutions of the world, why are you dogmatized as living in the world?” There is no reference here to Church ordinances, as you might conclude from E.V., but to human institutions indiscriminately and independently of Divine authority. So fast as Churches lose the Holy Spirit and backslide, they always depart from New Testament simplicity, and go off into human institutions, laying heavy burdens on the people, and depending on their own works instead of the Holy Ghost. Jesus came to break all of these yokes off our necks, and make us free as angels. For this he died, nailing all human creeds, institutions, and authorities to the cross. How inconsistent for people whom God has made free, to still live encumbered by these human burdens! If you are a Christian, you have come out of the world. Then, why do you live like the people of the world, still wearing the yokes of worldly people? How few people, who claim to be the Lord’s, really enjoy the glorious freedom which Jesus purchased on the cross?
21. “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” What is here referred to under this sweeping prohibition? Why, all human institutions, inventions, customs, and laws, laying on you a thousand heavy burdens. You have come out of the world. Then how inconsistent that you be enslaved, contaminated, and encumbered like people of the world!
22. “All which are for destruction by the use, according to the commandments and teachings of men.” Every age has had its methods, institutions, and customs, by which the people were burdened and enslaved. They have all vanished away with the revolving centuries, leaving not a trace. Our life in Christ is invisible, spiritual, and immortal. Is it possible we can not rise above transitory things, and even here live the life of God and eternity, remembering that all these human fashions, customs, laws, and usages perish with the fleeting moment?
23. “Whatsoever things are indeed having a manifestation of wisdom in will worship, humiliation, and deprivation of the body, are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.” The heathen in all ages have tortured the body to get rid of sin. The Roman Catholics have long preached the doctrine of remedial suffering in this life and in purgatory. The apostatizing Protestant Churches are fast going away in the track of their predecessors, losing sight of the great Bible truth of justification and sanctification by the free grace of God in Christ, received and appropriated by faith alone. It takes a preacher on Sunday morning nearly as long to announce his appointments as to preach his little sermonette. These appointments are a concatenation of work for all of his members every day, in cooperation with a great catalogue of human institutions, which give no relief to the heart aching for purity, and to the immortal soul longing for victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. The week is spent in toil and drudgery, and no victory for Jesus. A little filthy lucre is gathered up, which is of no value, for our God is infinitely rich. John Wesley was a great man for institutions, establishing the class meeting, for the conversion of penitents; the holiness band, for the sanctification of Christians; and the select societies, for the establishment of the sanctified; all these being strictly the institutions of the Holy Ghost. Let us still have them, instead of wearing ourselves out in “will worship;” i.e., worshipping the will of preachers and leaders, and perhaps our own will, instead of worshipping the sweet will of God. In a Western town I met a young man from Kentucky, who, when a boy, had been converted in my meeting. Fearing that he was on a downward trend spiritually, I requested his pastor to look after him. “Yes, that I will; I must hunt up some work for Joe to do.” The poor fellow was about to starve to death. He needed a Benjamin’s mess, instead of a job. But that is the way the blind pastors are doing. They starve and work their members to death. Paul says that “all this is of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”
You may torture, toil, pay your money, and suffer bodily privation till the judgment-day, and find old Adam in you big as a rhinoceros, gripping you by the throat and dragging you into hell. Salvation does not come in this way. It is not by works, but by faith. Stay at the feet of Jesus till you get saved to the uttermost, and filled with the Holy Ghost. Then go and work for God and souls, with victory in your heart and heaven in your life.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v14 Jer 17:1. - 2Co 3:3. - Col 2:14.
Jeremiah
SIN’S WRITING AND ITS ERASURE
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Jer 17:1. - 2Co 3:3. - Col 2:14.
I have put these verses together because they all deal with substantially the same metaphor. The first is part of a prophet’s solemn appeal. It describes the sin of the nation as indelible. It is written in two places. First, on their hearts, which reminds us of the promise of the new covenant to be written on the heart. The ‘red-leaved tablets of the heart’ are like waxen tables on which an iron stylus makes a deep mark, an ineradicable scar. So Judah’s sin is, as it were, eaten into their heart, or, if we might so say, tattooed on it. It is also written on the stone horns of the altar, with a diamond which can cut the rock {an illustration of ancient knowledge of the properties of the diamond}. That sounds a strange place for the record of sin to appear, but the image has profound meaning, as we shall see presently.
Then the two New Testament passages deal with other applications of the same metaphor. Christ is, in the first, represented as writing on the hearts of the Corinthians, and in the second, as taking away ‘the handwriting contrary to us.’ The general thought drawn from all is that sin’s writing on men’s hearts is erased by Christ and a new inscription substituted.
I. The handwriting of sin.
Sin committed is indelibly written on the heart of the doer.
‘The heart,’ of course, in Hebrew means more than merely the supposed seat of the affections. It is figuratively the centre of the spiritual life, just as physically it is the centre of the natural. Thoughts and affections, purposes and desires are all included, and out of it are ‘the issues of life,’ the whole outgoings of the being. It is the fountain and source of all the activity of the man, the central unity from which all comes. Taken in this wide sense it is really the whole inner self that is meant, or, as is said in one place, ‘the hidden man of the heart.’ And so the thought in this vigorous metaphor may be otherwise put, that all sin makes indelible marks on the whole inward nature of the man who does it.
Now to begin with, think for a moment of that truth that everything which we do reacts on us the doers.
We seldom think of this. Deeds are done, and we fancy that when done, they are done with. They pass, as far as outward seeming goes, and their distinguishable consequences in the outward world, in the vast majority of cases, soon apparently pass. All seems evanescent and irrecoverable as last year’s snows, or the water that flowed over the cataract a century ago. But there is nothing more certain than that all which we do leaves indelible traces on ourselves. The mightiest effect of a man’s actions is on his own inward life. The recoil of the gun is more powerful than the blow from its shot. Our actions strike inwards and there produce their most important effects. The river runs ceaselessly and its waters pass away, but they bring down soil, which is deposited and makes firm land, or perhaps they carry down grains of gold.
This is the true solemnity of life, that in all which we do we are carrying on a double process, influencing others indeed, but influencing ourselves far more.
Consider the illustrations of this law in regard to our sins.
Now the last thing people think of when they hear sermons about ‘sin’ is that what is meant is the things that they are doing every day. I can only ask you to try to remember, while I speak, that I mean those little acts of temper, or triflings with truth, or yieldings to passion or anger, or indulgence in sensuality, and above all, the living without God, to which we are all prone.
{a} All wrong-doing makes indelible marks on character. It makes its own repetition easier. Habit strengthens inclination. Peter found denying his Lord three times easier than doing it once. It weakens resistance. In going downhill the first step is the only one that needs an effort; gravity will do the rest.
It drags after it a tendency to other evil. All wrong things have so much in common that they lead on to one another. A man with only one vice is a rare phenomenon. Satan sends his apostles forth two by two. Sins hunt in couples, or more usually in packs, like wolves, only now and then do they prey alone like lions. Small thieves open windows for greater ones. It requires continually increasing draughts, like indulgence in stimulants. The palate demands cayenne tomorrow, if it has had black pepper to-day.
So, whatever else we do by our acts, we are making our own characters, either steadily depraving or steadily improving them. There will come a slight slow change, almost unnoticed but most certain, as a dim film will creep over the peach, robbing it of all its bloom, or some microscopic growth will steal across a clearly cut inscription, or a breath of mist will dim a polished steel mirror.
{b} All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the memory, that awful and mysterious power of recalling past things out of the oblivion in which they seem to lie. How solemn and miserable it is to defile it with the pictures of things evil! Many a man in his later years has tried to ‘turn over a new leaf,’ and has never been able to get the filth out of his memory, for it has been printed on the old page in such strong colours that it shines through. I beseech you all, and especially you young people, to keep yourselves ‘innocent of much transgression,’ and ‘simple concerning evil’-to make your memories like an illuminated missal with fair saints and calm angels bordering the holy words, and not an Illustrated Police News. Probably there is no real oblivion. Each act sinks in as if forgotten, gets overlaid with a multitude of others, but it is there, and memory will one day bring it to us.
And all sin pollutes the imagination. It is a miserable thing to have one’s mind full of ugly foul forms painted on the inner walls of our chamber of imagery, like the hideous figures in some heathen temple, where gods of lust and murder look out from every inch of space on the walls.
{c} All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the conscience. It does so partly by sophisticating it-the sensibility to right and wrong being weakened by every evil act, as a cold in the head takes away the sense of smell. It brings on colour-blindness to some extent. One does not know how far one may go towards ‘Evil! be thou my good’-or how far towards incapacity of distinguishing evil. But at all events the tendency of each sin is in that direction. So conscience may become seared, though perhaps never so completely as that there are no intervals when it speaks. It may long lie dormant, as Vesuvius did, till great trees grow on the floor of the crater, but all the while the communication with the central fires is open, and one day they will burst out.
The writing may be with invisible ink, but it will be legible one day. So, then, all this solemn writing on the heart is done by ourselves. What are you writing? There is a presumption in it of a future retribution, when you will have to read your autobiography, with clearer light and power of judging yourselves. At any rate there is retribution now, which is described by many metaphors, such as sowing and reaping, drinking as we have brewed, and others-but this one of indelible writing is not the least striking.
Sin is graven deep on sinful men’s worship.
The metaphor here is striking and not altogether clear. The question rises whether the altars are idolatrous altars, or Jehovah’s. If the former, the expression may mean simply that the Jews’ idolatry, which was their sin, was conspicuously displayed in these altars, and had, as it were, its most flagrant record in their sacrifices. The altar was the centre point of all heathen and Old Testament worship, and altars built by sinners were the most conspicuous evidences of their sins.
So the meaning would be that men’s sin shapes and culminates in their religion; and that is very true, and explains many of the profanations and abominations of heathenism, and much of the formal worship of so-called Christianity.
For instance, a popular religion which is a mere Deism, a kind of vague belief in a providence, and in a future state where everybody is happy, is but the product of men’s sin, striking out of Christianity all which their sin makes unwelcome in it. The justice of God, punishment, sinfulness of sin, high moral tone, are all gone. And the very horns of their altars are marked with the signs of the worshippers’ sin.
But the ‘altars’ may be God’s altars, and then another idea will come in. The horns of the altar were the places where the blood of the sacrifice was smeared, as token of its offering to God. They were then a part of the ritual of propitiation. They had, no doubt, the same meaning in the heathen ritual. And so regarded, the metaphor means that a sense of the reality of sin shapes sacrificial religion.
There can be no doubt that a very real conviction of sin lies at the foundation of much, if not all, of the system of sacrifices. And it is a question well worth considering whether a conviction so widespread is not valid, and whether we should not see in it the expression of a true human need which no mere culture, or the like, will supply.
At all events, altars stand as witnesses to the consciousness of sin. And the same thought may be applied to much of the popular religion of this day. It may be ineffectual and shallow but it bears witness to a consciousness of evil. So its existence may be used in order to urge profounder realisation of evil on men. You come to worship, you join in confessions, you say ‘miserable sinners’-do you mean anything by it? If all that be true, should it not produce a deeper impression on you?
But another way of regarding the metaphor is this. The horns of the altar were to be touched with the blood of propitiation. But look! the blood flows down, and after it has trickled away, there, deep carven on the horns, still appears the sin, i.e. the sin is not expiated by the sinner’s sacrifice. Jeremiah is then echoing Isaiah’s word, ‘Bring no more vain oblations.’ The picture gives very strikingly the hopelessness, so far as men are concerned, of any attempt to blot out this record. It is like the rock-cut cartouches of Egypt on which time seems to have no effect. There they abide deep for ever. Nothing that we can do can efface them. ‘What I have written, I have written.’ Pen-knives and detergents that we can use are all in vain.
II. Sin’s writing may be erased, and another put in its place.
The work of Christ, made ours by faith, blots it out.
{a} Its influence on conscience and the sense of guilt. The accusations of conscience are silenced. A red line is drawn across the indictment, or, as Colossians has it, it is ‘nailed to the cross.’ There is power in His death to set us free from the debt we owe.
{b} Its influence on memory. Christ does not bring oblivion, but yet takes away the remorse of remembrance. Faith in Christ makes memory no longer a record which we blush to turn over, or upon which we gloat with imaginative delight in guilty pleasures past, but a record of our shortcomings that humbles us with a penitence which is not pain, but serves as a beacon and warning for the time to come. He who has a clear beam of memory on his backward track, and a bright light of hope on his forward one, will steer right.
{c} Its influence on character.
We attain new hopes and tastes. ‘We become epistles of Christ known and read of all men,’ like palimpsests, Homer or Ovid written over with the New Testament gospels or epistles.
Christ’s work is twofold, erasure and rewriting. For the one, ‘I will blot out as a cloud their transgressions.’ None but He can remove these. For the other, ‘I will put My law into their minds and will write it on their hearts.’ He can impress all holy desires on, and can put His great love and His mighty spirit into, our hearts.
So give your hearts to Him. They are all scrawled over with hideous and wicked writing that has sunk deep into their substance. Graven as if on rock are your sins in your character. Your worship and sacrifices will not remove them, but Jesus Christ can. He died that you might be forgiven, He lives that you may be purified. Trust yourself to Him, and lean all your sinfulness on His atonement and sanctifying power, and the foul words and bad thoughts that have been scored so deep into your nature will be erased, and His own hand will trace on the page, poor and thin though it be, which has been whitened by His blood, the fair letters and shapes of His own likeness. Do not let your hearts be the devil’s copybooks for all evil things to scrawl their names there, as boys do on the walls, but spread them before Him, and ask Him to make them clean and write upon them His new name, indicating that you now belong to another, as a new owner writes his name on a book that he has bought.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv18, 20, 23 intruding into those things
intruding into those things
The errorists against whom Paul warns the Colossians, and against whom, in principle, the warning has perpetual significance, were called "Gnostics," from gnosis, "knowledge." These Gnostics "came most keenly into conflict with the exalted rank and redeeming rank of Christ, to whom they did not leave His full divine dignity, but assigned to Him merely the highest rank in the order of spirits, while they exalted angels as concerned in bringing the Messianic salvation."--H.A.W. Meyer. Paul’s characteristic word in Colossians for the divine revelation is epignosis, i.e. "full knowledge." Col 1:9; Col 1:10; Col 3:10 as against the pretended "knowledge" of the errorists. The warnings apply to all extra-biblical forms, doctrines, and customs, and to all ascetic practices.
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angels (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v16 Warning against a false righteousness of works:
Warning against a false righteousness of works:
v. 16. Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days,
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v. 17. which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
v. 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
v. 19. and not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
v. 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,
v. 21. (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
v. 22. which all are to perish with the using,) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
v. 23. Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
Having declared to the Colossians the glorious advantages which are theirs through conversion and Baptism, the apostle now names specific errors which threaten to deprive them of the blessings of the Gospel. Among these dangerous errors is that of Judaistic insistence upon the observance of certain days; Let no man, then, judge you in food or in drink; or in the matter of a festival, or new moon, or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of coming things; the body, however, is of Christ. This seems to have been one of the points upon which the Judaistic teachers insisted, that the precepts of the Ceremonial Law were still in force and must be kept. They wanted the distinction between clean and unclean foods maintained; they probably extended the vows which the Nazarites made voluntarily into laws binding upon the consciences of all men. See Lev 11:1-47; Lev 10:8-11; Num 6:1-4. They insisted that the great festivals of the Old Testament, the new moons, and all the Sabbaths must still be observed by divine command. In other words, they wanted the entire Church, or Ceremonial Law of the Old Testament continued for the time of the New Testament as well. These people are not without imitators in our day. Not only are there special denominations whose fundamental principle is that of the observance of the Jewish Ceremonial Law, but there are individual teachers in practically all denominations of our country that insist upon keeping at least the Sunday by divine command, believing that it has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath. But St. Paul’s comment on all such efforts is brief and to the point: Let no man pass an unfavorable judgment upon you, let no man criticize and condemn you for your attitude. For all the things comprised in the Jewish Ceremonial Law served merely as a shadow of coming things; they were merely types of the future, permanent values of the New Testament. The body is Christ’s, in Him all the types are fulfilled, and therefore no longer have any need to be observed. See Heb 9:8-12. He that chooses any day as fixed by divine command, he that confines his diet to certain articles of food and drink as being demanded by the Lord, is deceiving himself, placing himself under the yoke of the Ceremonial Law, and is in danger of losing his soul’s salvation. See Gal 4:9-11.
Another specific instance of Judaizing influence to which Paul finds occasion to refer is that of the superstitious worship of angels: Let no man defraud you (give judgment against you), taking pleasure in humility and cult of angels, intruding into the things which he has not seen vainly inflated by the mind of his flesh, and not holding the Head, from whom the whole body, through the joints and ligaments being supplied and held together, increases the increase of God. The apostle uncompromisingly designates this as another species of fraud, as another scheme to deprive the Christians of the glorious blessings of the Gospel. By their critical, supercilious attitude the false teachers were condemning the Colossian Christians for adhering to the simple truths of the Gospel; they were intimating and teaching that the way advocated by them was so much better, to be commended so much more highly. They took pleasure in exhibiting very ostentatiously what they wanted men to regard as humility; they were advocating a cult or worship of angels. They tried to make it appear as though man should consider himself as too lowly and insignificant for fellowship with God, that he should be satisfied with communing with angels. Under a show of meekness and lowliness, therefore, they had the audacity to intrude into the domain of spirits, into the transcendental regions. They thus became subject to delusions, which they nevertheless wanted to inflict upon others. Without the slightest ground they assumed an attitude of superiority, puffed up by the mind of their flesh, of their old sinful nature. The pride of these people, therefore, as of all their followers in our days, consisted in this, that with all their ostentatious humility they permitted themselves to believe that men could not be satisfied with the simple knowledge, obedience, and belief of the Gospel, but must strive to attain to a peculiar, higher wisdom and sanctity. This resulted, of course, in their not holding fast to Christ as the one Head of the Church. They severed themselves from connection with Christ. But, as Paul says, it is only from Him that the entire body of the Church in all its members receives power and strength to increase according to the will of God. It is just as in the case of the human organism, in which the various limbs and members are held together by joints and ligaments, this being the condition under which they are supplied with blood and nerve force from the centers of life, especially from the head. Note: No one can remain a member of the body of Christ unless he clings to that Redeemer and His Gospel in simple faith and rejects all the systems and methods that are offered as substitutes for the truth in our days.
The apostle concludes this section with some very pertinent and pointed remarks: If, then, you are dead with Christ, away from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you suffer decrees to be laid upon you, (such as) Touch not, taste not, handle not? all of which ordinances lead in their use to (spiritual) destruction, after the commandments and doctrines of men, which have a reputation for wisdom in arbitrary cult and humility and unsparingness of the body, not in any honor, but (only) to the satisfying of the flesh. Here the apostle makes the application to the Colossian Christians. When they learned to believe in Christ, they, with Him, died unto the rudiments, the precepts, of the world, all the ceremonial laws by which people hope to earn something in the sight of God. It is self-evident, therefore, that Christians will not permit false teachers to lay this unnecessary yoke of human ordinances upon them again, just as though they were still members of this present world, as though they had never yet heard of the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Those precepts were indeed being taught by the false teachers, just as those of our day are characterized by their insistence upon such commands: You must not touch that food; you must not taste that drink; you must not be found indulging in this or that or another thing, all of which are things indifferent and therefore matters of Christian liberty. If a person persists in keeping such precepts as commandments of God, the word will apply to him: In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, Mat 15:9. The keeping of such ordinances will thus finally result in the spiritual destruction of those that insist upon them. For they are nothing but commandments and doctrines of men, which, indeed, have a great show and reputation of wisdom, as if they were of value in furthering people in knowledge of a holy life. But it is an arbitrary worship, a self-chosen cult, not based upon God’s Word and will. The attitude of such people, moreover, is one of false humility; they have a great show of meekness, but in the final analysis they will be found full of pride of self and unwilling to accept instruction. And finally, they practice an austerity toward their own bodies in ascetic abstinence which is without command and promise. Thus all their attempts to excel before God with a piety and righteousness not based upon the Word of God are vain and foolish. The apostle pronounces a simple judgment upon all such efforts: Their reputation is without real basis, without honor which will stand before God, And what is more: All these things are done only to the satisfying and gratifying of the flesh. The poor deluded errorists that are trying to lead other people astray by insisting upon works which are not commanded by God delude themselves more than anyone else, because, after all, they derive a great amount of self-satisfaction out of the practices which they advocate, in other words, they are deliberately trying to earn justification before God by works of their own choosing. The fact remains that all precepts, all doctrines, all schemes, all methods, all works that aim at merit in man thereby take away merit from Christ and must result in failure.
Summary
The apostle urges his readers to be steadfast in their faith in Christ and to beware of the philosophy of deceit of men; he pictures to them the riches of the blessings which have come to them in conversion and Baptism, by which they have become partakers of the triumph of Christ; he names some specific Judaistic errors by which the false teachers, under a guise of wisdom and humility, were preparing to kill their faith.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv16, 18, 20 in eating or in drinking
in eating or in drinking
The law of Moses included what one can eat and drink. "for what you eat or what you drink"
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about a feast day or a new moon, or about Sabbath days
The law of Moses specified the days to celebrate, to worship, and to offer sacrifice. "for the way you celebrate feast days or new moons or the Sabbath"
a shadow of the things to come
A shadow gives only a vague idea of the shape and nature of an object. In a similar way, religious traditions such as the law of Moses can only partially show the reality of Jesus Christ. (See: Metaphor)
the substance
Here this means "the reality," the thing that casts the "shadow."
translationWords
feast
Sabbath
Christ
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23 2:14 the record of the charges against us: The…
2:14 the record of the charges against us: The Greek phrase suggests an IOU that we have all signed. Since we are unable to pay what we owe, it stands against us. The law of God required obedience that people are unable to give, but God has forgiven our debt through the work of Christ (2:13).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.