Chapter 2 – One God Translation

Colossians

   2 For I want you to know how great my struggle is for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person. 2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, and I want them to have all of the riches which come from a conviction in the understanding of the knowledge of God’s revealed mystery[1268] — summed up as Messiah. 3 In him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. [1269] 4 I am writing this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments. 5 For although I am absent in person I am with you in spirit, and I am rejoicing to see your good discipline and the strength of your faith in Messiah.
    6 So then, as you received Messiah Jesus, the lord,[1270] continue to conduct yourselves in harmony with him, 7 having been rooted in him and now being built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught it, and overflowing with gratitude.
    8 Be careful that no one takes you captive with empty and deceptive philosophy based on human tradition and on the elemental spirit forces[1271] of the world and not based on Messiah. 9 For in him the entire fullness of God’s character and mind lives bodily, 10 and you share this fullness in him who is the head over every ruler and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a non-physical, non-literal circumcision, one not done with hands, that is, by putting off the sinful self[1272] in the spiritual circumcision done by the Messiah. 12 You were buried with him when you were baptized in water, and with him you were also raised from death, so to speak, through belief in the creative energy of God, the One who raised him from the dead. 13 Although you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful self, He made you alive with him, having forgiven us all our sins. 14 God erased the certificate of debt which was against us[1273] with all of its decrees[1274] which were opposed to us, and took it out of the way by nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and shamed them publicly; He triumphed over them in Jesus at the cross.
    16 Therefore,[1275] do not let anyone, whoever he is, try to exercise authority over you[1276] in regard to food and drink or in the matter of annual holy days, monthly new moons,[1277] and the weekly Sabbath. [1278] 17 This whole calendar is a single shadow of what was to come, but by contrast the reality is the Messiah. [1279] 18 Let no one disqualify you from the prize by insisting on ascetic practices[1280] and the worship of angels, going on about so-called visions he has seen, inflated for no reason by his unconverted mind. 19 Such a person has not held firmly to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by the ligaments and tendons, grows with the growth which comes from God.
    20 If you have died with Messiah to the elemental spirit forces of the world, why, as if you were alive in the world, do you submit to decrees — 21 do not handle, do not taste, do not touch? 22 All these regulations refer to things that will perish with use; they are just human commands and doctrines. 23 These rules may seem to be wise with their invented religion, ascetic practices, and severe treatment of the body, but they are in reality of no value in stopping sinful indulgence. [1281]

Colossians

[1268]

The mystery of the Kingdom, God’s unfolding Kingdom plan, is the primary content of the Gospel and was first preached by Jesus (Heb. 2:3). The Kingdom had existed in a preliminary form in OT times (1 Chron. 14:2; 18:14; 28:5; 2 Chron. 13:8; 17:5; 20:30).

[1269]

The beginning of that wisdom is found in the creed of Jesus in Mark 12:29, the long-neglected definition of Jesus, declaring who the only true God is. Repentance involves giving up false ideas about God and embracing Jesus by embracing Jesus’ words, his Gospel and beliefs. Jesus, without his words, is a false Jesus (see Jn. 12:44ff).

[1270]

The lower case “lord” is deliberate to reinforce the vitally important distinction between the Lord God (Yahweh) and the Messianic lord Jesus, the adoni, “my lord,” of Ps. 110:1. This verse is an umbrella and controlling verse for the NT view of the relationship of God and Jesus. It is cited many more times by far than any other verse from the Hebrew Bible. Jesus used it to stump all his adversaries and to put an end to all dispute (Mk. 12:35ff). Jesus is “the lord Messiah” who was born (Lk. 2:11) and thus the Lord’s (Yahweh’s) Messiah (Lk. 2:26). The blind men understood the meaning of “lord, son of David” (Mt. 20:30).

[1271]

Demonic forces and teachings promoted by demons, lying spirits.

[1272]

Unregenerate human nature.

[1273]

Peter in Acts 15:10 admitted that the detailed regulations of Torah had been a burden which the forefathers had been unable to bear.

[1274]

The parallel in Eph. 2:14-15 clarifies what this is: It is those regulations which put up a barrier between Jew and Gentile, “the Torah (law) of commandments expressed in dogmas.” These were “the enmity” which divided Jew and Gentile. They are no more, now that Christ has come and inaugurated the New Covenant. Christ has “abolished” those elements of the law (Eph. 2:15). This in no way affects the obligation of all believers to obey Jesus. The “obedience of faith” summarizes the Christian view and frames the book of Romans (1:5; 16:26; cp. Heb. 5:9 which is decisive).

[1275]

That is, in view of the cancellation of these Old Covenant, temporary obligations.

[1276]

That is, criticize you and try to regulate you with commands which take you back to the shadow instead of keeping you in harmony with Messiah who has come and has replaced the shadow calendar.

[1277]

Paul writes “holy day” and “new moon” but he includes obviously the various annual holy days and the regular monthly new moons.

[1278]

On no account should the reader be misled into thinking that Paul excludes the weekly Sabbath here. Sabbath appears often in a plural form where the meaning is the singular weekly Sabbath (even in the ten commandments, see Exod. 20:10, LXX). The translations are correct here to write “Sabbath day” or “Sabbath,” meaning the weekly Sabbath. When holy days, new moons and Sabbath are listed together the weekly Sabbath is always meant. The weekly Sabbath has no more status in the New Covenant than “new moons” or “holy days.” They are all equally a shadow replaced by the Christ who has come. Obligatory Sabbath keeping thus pulls a believer back under the Old Covenant. See Lk. 16:16 and Jn. 1:17 for the difference between the Law of Moses in the letter and the New Covenant Law of Messiah in the spirit.

[1279]

The substance or reality, of which the calendar was a shadow only, is very clearly the body of Christ. The same comparison of shadow and body appears in Heb. 8:5 and 10:1: the body or person of Christ takes the place of the shadow of the law. In Heb. 10:5-10, the body, i.e. person, of Christ has come, making a reversion to the shadows of the law a serious mistake, denying the benefits of the risen, supernatural Messiah and his presence with us in the truth of the Gospel. Paul is adamantly against a mixing of the letter and the spirit (Rom. 7:6). Jesus is the one who has come. Note that Adam “is the type of the one who is to come” (Rom. 5:14), but that does not mean that Adam or Christ have not come! The OT calendar is not an obligatory shadow of things still to come, still required as obedience. This would destroy the whole context here. Messiah has come. He is the body, the reality of which the law is a sketch or outline. Our new life is in him, not in the shadows of calendar observance. Sabbath and holy day keeping are irrelevant and actually detrimental when enforced as obligatory in the New Covenant in Messiah. The shadow is in itself the shadow of the Christ who has come, and the calendar has no value now that Christ has come and effected a non-literal circumcision (v. 11). Circumcision includes “the whole law” (Gal. 5:2-3) which goes with it, i.e. those regulations which separated Jews from Gentiles. Paul referred to this as “the works of Torah.” Christians, since Christ has come, are now celebrating a continuous rest in Christ. They are to be celebrating the feast continuously (1 Cor. 5:8). The spirit of the law replaces the letter of the law and to insist on the letter simply causes believers to retrogress to Moses. Paul worked hard against this fatal mixing of Moses and Jesus. After all Jesus had come to fulfill, i.e. fill with its fullest meaning, the Torah. Mark 7:19 is a striking testimony to Jesus’ abolition of food laws, repeated with even greater clarity in Rom. 14:14, 20, where the issue is clean and unclean foods (i.e. Lev. 11). The message is that Christians are to live in the clear light of Christ and not go backwards into the temporary shadow of the Old Covenant which is now superseded. Note too that in 2 Cor. 3 the Sinai event is no longer what matters. And in Gal. 4 Paul makes his point as strongly as he can by saying that a desire to revert to the letter of the ten commandments is bondage and Hagar!

[1280]

A banning of all alcohol is not the teaching of the Bible. Jesus performed an extraordinary miracle by turning 120 gallons of water into wine. The Baptists and others, not to be outdone, performed a similar miracle by turning that wine into grape juice! It was the “temperance” movement which rejected all use of alcohol, being actually a “prohibition” movement. Paul did not say, “Do not get drunk on grape juice”! (Eph. 5:18). The word is oinos which is alcohol, not grape juice. The use of alcohol for celebration (Deut. 14:26) is not forbidden by the Bible, but excess use, drunkenness is, it goes without saying, always condemned. Jesus recognized the use of wine in the Lord’s supper and no one would have questioned this. On no account should churches advocate policies which make their members more righteous than Jesus and weaken their testimony to the world we seek to convert! Such misunderstanding makes church members appear foolish even to outsiders, and involves a strange pharisaical tendency. The biblical model is always the right one.

[1281]

Obligatory vegetarianism would be an example of such teaching. Or total abstinence from alcohol which goes beyond the standard set by God and Jesus.