Aleethia!

This lesson was taught on Wednesday evening, 08-13-2008.

In this passage Paul is truly dealing with the problem of legalistic asceticism. Asceticism can be defined in this way.

Asceticism = the practice of severe self-discipline and abstinence from all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons

The false teaching he’s dealing with now is this extreme version of self-denial.

In verse 20 Paul seems to turn this teaching on its head. Remember that this teaching is an outworking of the underlying Gnostic philosophy that matter is evil and the spiritual is good. It makes sense then, that these people would teach extreme self-denial. Deny yourself pleasure, food, any number of things, and you are becoming less materialistic and more spiritual.

Paul agrees that we have died to the world, and the powers that rule the world. He then asks why, considering our death to the world, would we submit ourselves to asceticism.  This turns the Gnostic thinking upside down. They thought that by denying themselves they were becoming more spiritual. Paul says, you’ve already become spiritually alive and dead to the world, so why would you submit to the world by denying yourself.

The Greek word translated as submit is a form of the word we get our english words dogma and dogmatic from. It means to voluntarily submit to a system of rules laid down by an authority. Paul is arguing that we are no longer under the authority of the world and the Devil and should therefore not submit to their legalistic system of rules.

In verse 21 Paul gives us examples of the type of regulation they are being given. He seems to almost be mocking their regulations by saying, “Don’t handle this. Don’t taste that. Don’t touch anything!”

This is legalism remixed. Again they are trying to manufacture their own holiness, rather than relying on Christ’s. The way of life advocated here would resemble that undertaken by monks in the medieval church. They denied themselves any pleasure, including that of family, wore simple clothes, ate simple food, fasted, prayed for long periods. They attempted to avoid all contact with the world.

The Bible teaches that we are not of the world since we have been born again into God’s spiritual kingdom. We are in the world on mission though. To avoid the world is to avoid our mission, and to avoid God’s creation, which he has given to us for our use and enjoyment.

To be sure, over indulgence can be the result of being focused on physical pleasure, and be sinful. But denying yourself physical pleasures for the purpose of becoming more spiritual or holy is not God’s plan. Using food as an example, we should eat for health and enjoyment. We should not be glutinous, but neither should we starve ourselves or eat only food that we don’t enjoy. God created food. He is pleased when we enjoy it.

In verse 22 Paul makes two arguments against such self-denial.

First, the focus is on physical things which pass away. True religion and spirituality does not consist of these things. Calvin put it this way.

…they make religion consist in things outward and frail, which have no connection with the spiritual kingdom of God… ¹

Secondly, these kind of regulations are man-made, not God-made. Ironically, this is man-made godliness! This is not how God told us to draw near to him, so why would we pursue it for that cause?

First we saw Jesus plus my effort in legalism. Then we saw Jesus plus my experiences in spiritual elitism. Now we’re seeing Jesus plus my sacrifice in asceticism. This is the same as the other two. It is a denial of the sufficiency of Christ. It is a lack of faith in Christ.

Paul says in verse 23 that these kinds of man made regulations appear to be wise. They seem like a good idea. This kind of man-made religion is attractive because it seems so spiritual and pious. It appeals to our pride that we could exert effort and contribute to our own holiness and righteousness. It seems logical that this way would be a good way to gain control over your sinful, fleshly desires.

Paul says they don’t accomplish it though. All they do is promote self-made religion, false humility, and asceticism.

Self-made religion, or “self-imposed worship” as the NIV puts it, is religious practices which are not commanded by God, but voluntarily adopted in an effort to achieve a higher degree of piety. Calvin described it this way

…a voluntary service, which men choose for themselves at their own option, without authority from God. ²

We might ask why, if this is voluntary, is this a bad practice? There are two reasons.

First, God knows best how he wants us to worship and serve him. He has given us these instructions. Nothing else we can think of on our own will be a better means of worship and service than to simply follow the commands he has given us.

Second, because these acts of service are extra Biblical and adopted voluntarily, they really spring from our own pride. This kind of religion has corrupted the pure worship of God commanded in Scripture and is godless because God is not being worship, self is being worshiped. My dad told me once long ago that the problem with self-made men is that they tend to worship their creator, namely they worship themselves. The same is true of self-made religion, we worship the creator of the religion, ourselves. The glory goes to self, not God.

Have them list self-made religious practices they can think of. Examples include: monks, who voluntarily lived a life of ritual and self-denial, thinking it would bring them closer to God. The thought process in the church at the time was that the rest of the church could live however they wanted because the monks were being holy for all of us.

The second thing these kind of regulations promote is false humility. We’ve already talked about this at length in a previous lesson. As a review though, false humility is being proud of your humility. It’s acting humble and telling people about it. It’s thinking to yourself, “I’m more humble than he is, because I do…” God is not pleased with this kind of fake humility.

This false humility often springs from the third thing Paul mentioned, which is asceticism, or “severity to the body.” This term has in mind, extreme fasting, neglect of care for the body, as in not bathing, etc. It stems from that Gnostic thinking that the material world is evil and we should want nothing to do with it.

In other passages of Scripture, Paul talks about disciplining his body and keeping it in submission (1 Cor 9:27), but by that he means wrestling it into submission to his new nature, not physically abusing himself.

Intentionally abusing your physical body in order to become more holy or godly, is not God’s plan. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, created by God for our use and enjoyment. We should care for our body without despising it, or going to the opposite extreme and worshiping it.

Paul says that denying our physical needs will not help us overcome our sinful, fleshly desires. The reason being that these kinds of behavior actually feed our sin nature by promoting pride and sef-righteousness.

The point of these verses is to summarize this entire argument. All you need is Christ. You don’t need Jesus plus self effort and works. You don’t need Jesus plus “spiritual” experiences or visions or revelations. You don’t need Jesus plus sef-denial or poverty. Trusting in any of those things for justification or sanctification will result in your missing it altogether.

And don’t feel like you have to do something to be a “good” Christian, just because others are doing it. We are to encourage and inspire each other to do good works (Hebrews 10:24), but we should never be made to feel less spiritual or less accepted by God because we don’t do some man-made religious activity.

Jesus is sufficient. He’s all we need for salvation. He’s all we need for overcoming sin.

1. John Calvin, Commentary on Colossians
2. Ibid.