Bad Religion – 2:16-19

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¹⁶ Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. ¹⁸ Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. ¹⁹ They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

In this paragraph, Paul warns the Colossians against the influences of bad religion. More specificially, he tells Christians not to let false teachers judge them by their religious observance or spiritual experiences. Many scholars believe that Paul had specific opponents in mind when he wrote the letter, likely a group of Judaizers (strict Jewish Christians who taught that salvation was open to Gentiles through Christ, but that all must obey Torah to be saved) like those who corrupted the Galatian churches. While this is quite plausible, I struggle to see that Paul is singling out any particular group or teacher, as he does in Galatians or 2 Corinthians. It seems more likely that the apostle is drawing on his long experience and warning the fledgling church about the types of false teaching that he has seen creep into churches elsewhere. He is alerting the church that attacks will come from both sides – from Jewish teachers and pagans alike.

In verse 16, he is clearly sounding the alarm against Jewish Christians who would seek to place Gentile believers under the yoke of Torah. Food laws and holy days were essential to the life and culture of Judaism, and Jewish converts would have sensed no need to abandon these. But Paul is clear that the Gospel does not demand Gentile believers take up these practices. No doubt he is remembering here the words of Peter at the Jerusalem Council: “Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”^[i] Torah observance never saved anyone; therefore the Gentile Christians could not be condemned for failing to keep it.

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Have you ever turned left when you should have turned right? All of us have gotten off track at one point or another. We’ve gone the opposite way we were supposed to, and the quicker we realize it, the sooner we can get headed in the right direction. When faced with the choice between two opposites (left or right, north or south, Ohio State or Michigan), it’s important that we choose the right one. (Go Bucks!)

We often think of death as the opposite of life, but that’s not the best picture of the truth. The relationship between death and life isn’t the same as the relationship between left and right, or in and out. Instead, it’s like the relationship between dark and light. Darkness is the absence of light, not the opposite of it. In the same way, death is the absence of life.

In Colossians 2:13, Paul says that we were made alive with Christ, even in the midst of our sins. That means that God has filled us up with the life of Christ, which is both abundant and eternal. There is no way for us to possess this life apart from Jesus. After all, Jesus himself said in John 14, “I am the life.”

Being dead in your sins doesn’t mean, of course, that you are biologically dead. It simply means that you are devoid of the abundant and eternal life that Jesus alone possesses and gives. It means that you are lacking, as we all do without Christ, the fullness of life that only the Author of Life can provide.

How can you become filled with this life? Through faith in Jesus Christ. You are made alive with Christ because he was made alive when God raised him from the dead. Placing your faith – your full trust, love, and obedience – in Christ means that you, too, will receive the benefit of his resurrection. But you don’t have to wait until you die to experience new life. You can have it today! Eternal life begins the moment you place your faith in Jesus. Choose life.

I have to confess something: I never liked Jerry Maguire. Yes, there are some good lines. Cuba and Tom shouting “Show me the money!” at each other through the phone is a great scene. And Jerry Maguire has a noble purpose in making sports agency more relational. But the plot was hijacked by the romance which was, shall we say, overcooked. “You complete me.” Really?

Sadly, however, that may have been the truest line in the film. Not that any person can actually complete us, but that we believe: a) that we are at least half empty, b) that we can find our fullness in another human, and c) that romantic love is the only path to this fullness. “You complete me” is the teary-eyed plea of a narcissistic generation bent on finding love, not for the sake of the beloved, but for their own existential fulfillment.

While romantic love has its proper place, the only love that can fulfill us is the agape love of Christ. Paul says, in Colossians 2:10, “in Christ you have been brought to fullness.” This means that Jesus has done for us what no one else could do – make us truly and fully human. Our sinful inclinations, what Paul often calls “flesh,” are subhuman. They move us away from the purpose and glory for which we were originally created. But in Christ we are set back on track. Jesus puts us on the train to fullness.

In fact, it’s more accurate to say that, in Christ, we have already arrived. He has given us everything we need to complete the high calling of humanity. This means that the truest, fullest version of yourself is not the one who gives into sin and temptation or that looks for fulfillment in another person, but the one who lashes himself to Christ and follows hard after God. To be true to yourself is to be faithful to Jesus.

The Fullness – 2:9-15

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⁹ For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, ¹⁰ and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. ¹¹ In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Once again Paul returns to the theme of the fullness of God, echoing a line from the previously cited hymn (1:19): For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ]. Jesus is the embodiment of the fullness of the Deity. Everything that is true of God is also true of Jesus (excepting, of course, those attributes which cannot be contained in a body, such as omnipresence). Jesus is not, therefore, a second-level deity, or an exalted man, or anything less than God incarnate. “He is the embodiment and full expression of the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”^[i] Jesus is, quite literally, Immanuel, God with us, God among us.

The implications of this theological truth are astounding. We can only comprehend God by looking at Jesus, by reading about his life in the Gospels, by obeying his teaching, by participating in his suffering, and by placing our hope in his resurrection. If what you believe about God does not fit the person of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels, then what you believe about God is false. “All the fullness” is a phrase the defies explanation, rationalization, or minimization. Paul’s language is extreme because he wants us to grasp the depth of the truth of the Incarnation, which is itself the most extreme event in history. (See the section on 1:15-20 for more on this subject.)

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Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays, but the reasons I love it have changed over time. When I was young, I loved Easter because of the chocolate baskets I received from a close family friend. We would go to her house Easter evening and I would anxiously await the chocolate boon to befall me. Each year, my basket contained a pastel rainbow of colored chocolate, Reese’s peanut butter eggs, and a large chocolate bunny.

The first time I got the bunny my brain melted. It was huge! And chocolate! It would take me at least an hour to eat this whole thing! I was overwhelmed by this bunny with its colorful packaging and the rich, milk chocolate poured all the way through. But then I took my first bite. My teeth sank through this bunny much easier than I anticipated. I pulled it away in horror. This bunny is hollow! I’ve been cheated! It’s not fair! There wasn’t even caramel inside.

In Colossians 2:8, Paul warns believers against “hollow and deceptive philosophy.” Any teaching that does not depend on Christ, he says, is hollow. Like that giant chocolate bunny, it may look significant and life changing from the outside, but inside there’s just nothing to it. Any teaching, doctrine, or theology that removes Christ from the center is hollow, because nothing else can ever fill the void left by Jesus.

But how can we tell the difference? How can we know when we encounter a hollow and deceptive philosophy?

The best way to answer this question is with a diagnostic question: What is the litmus test of true belief according to this teaching? If the answer is anything other than “the person Jesus Christ,” then it is a hollow and deceptive philosophy. There are many false litmus tests:

• Political ideology or affiliation
• Biblical literalism
• Patriotism
• Human sexuality
• Expressions of spiritual gifts

But none of these can be the center of our faith. These are all chocolate bunnies. They are hollow. They cannot possibly hope to replace Jesus as the center, because in him lives the fullness of the Deity. Christ is the center, and everything flows from him. Your responsibility is to draw life from your personal encounters with Jesus. Always be on your guard against what seeks to remove him from the core of your life and belief.