When we become believers, we die to the world. This daily devotional looks at how the regulations the false teachers use will lead us to death.
Nuggets
- Disciples must follow God after conversion, not the worldview restrictions.
- The law won’t save us.
- The false teachers had a reputation polar opposite of what God wants for us.
Devotions in the Joy in the Gospel series
Paul liked the phrase dead with Christ. That is what we are when we are dead to sins.
Unfortunately, the false teachers were putting forth a false front. Paul cautioned the Colossians – and us – to see through their deception.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Living without the Regulations
“If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: ‘Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch’?”
Disciples must follow God after conversion, not the worldview restrictions.
Paul started this passage off with a good reminder for us — a third-party who has no ties to either writer or reader. He is writing to believers. He is writing to people who have made a commitment to become disciples of Christ the King.
This passage isn’t designed to bring people to Christ. It is meant to grow people who have already chosen to be children of God.
Glossary
So, Paul started what he was saying with a very big word — if.
- If your conversion was genuine
- If you submit to God as He asks
- If you become in the world but not of the world
The last was Paul’s point. The Colossians were letting the world tell them how things worked in the spiritual realm.
Worldview people have no clue.
Instead, worldview people want the spiritual realm to function so they don’t have to change. They don’t want to give up control or be told what to do or not do.
Oh, yeah. Isn’t that a hoot? They were trying to put restrictions on disciples when they didn’t want any restrictions at all.
Wait a second! These aren’t worldview people. These are other Jews wanting to pull an Eve Syndrome.
The Eve Syndrome is when we see a law and commandment and take it to the extreme. God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit. Eve interpreted that as don’t touch.
Here, we have Jews who wanted to add restrictions. Vaughan wrote, “Here we have its treatment of matter, how its teachers sought by ceremonial prohibitions (ver. 21) to counteract the deadly influence of sense in spirit, and to mortify the body as an enemy of the spiritual life.”
Resource
Jesus kept telling the Pharisees that it wasn’t the religion that was going to save them. It was the relationship.
Vaughan made another great observation. He said the extremes of abstinence and license to sin are both going to destroy our righteousness. Righteousness is the indwelling goodness that is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments and from which all virtues flow.
It is best that we be sober. Sober is a character trait distinguished by self-control, genuineness, and sound moral judgment. It is a calm and temperate disposition.
Glossary
God wants us to be even keeled. He doesn’t want us going to extremes.
We don’t have a license to sin after conversion. However, abstinence doesn’t always lead to righteousness, either.
Oh, yeah. Abstinence puts on a good show. Vaughan said it talks of wisdom, promise, worship, humility, and mortifying sin. All of those are nice, churchy words, aren’t they?
Wisdom is an enlightened acceptance of God’s principles, gained through knowledge, discernment, and good sense, that is put into practice through salvation, increasing our goodness and virtue.
- Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong.
- Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart. Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
God’s goodness is His holy, pure, and righteous behavior.
- Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
Humility is a character trait that diminishes pride and places dependence on God while holding a modest view of our importance with respect to others.
Worship is our personal or corporate response of admiration (confession, thanksgiving, praise, etc.) based on our attitude to God’s presence and our imitation of His character.
Mortify means to place a death penalty on our sins.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
The problem is that we are trying to put on self-imposed regulations. We are telling ourselves to do something God didn’t ask us to do.
The whole reason Jesus had to be our Savior was because we couldn’t save ourselves. We aren’t going to be able to keep up the abstinence.
Our only hope is the grace of God.
Where is wisdom found? In Jesus. “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (I Cor. 1: 22-24 ESV).
Regulations Lead to Death
“All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines” (Col. 2: 22 CSB)
The law won’t save us.
In Paul’s words, the law is destined to perish. “The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins” (Rom. 8: 3 NLT).
The regulations that the false teachers were referring to were the ceremonial laws. Jesus took care of those, but we still have the moral laws to keep.
- “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt. 5: 17: ESV).
- “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10: 4 ESV).
- For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5: 14 ESV).
The Deceptive Reputation
“Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence” (Col. 2: 23 CSB)
The false teachers had a reputation polar opposite of what God wants for us.
The false teachers’ passions and ambitions were focused on worldly things. Disciples should be dead to that.
Maclaren explained what being dead meant. He wrote, “We talk of an old man being dead to youthful follies and passions and ambitions, and we mean that they have ceased to interest him, that he is separated from, and insensible to them. So if we have got hold of Christ as our Saviour, that will deaden us to all which was our life.”
Resource
Maclaren thought Paul was cautioning the Colossians that the false teachers were being very sneaky. It was really hard to detect their lies.
We have to watch for people who put forth the show of religion without the submission of the relationship.
We like to think that we are worshiping God, even if we aren’t worshiping Him the way He has commanded. We go on the assumption that some is better than none.
We would be wrong. Maclaren wrote, “They are not worshipping Him as He has appointed, and therefore not at all.”
Resource
God expects worship His way.
Spence reminded the Colossians that they had made a commitment to Christ. Anything that was not of that commitment was not Christ-like.
Resource
Think about that. We expect God to love any worship we put forth because we are worshiping Him. It doesn’t work that way.
God has very specific ways to follow His worship. We just have to follow Him.
Making the Connections
Oh, wow! Vaughan had a great question. Do we blame Gospel and His gospel for not satisfying our fleshly wants and needs?
Resource
Think about it. We pray to God for five, ten years. We may hear God telling us to wait — usually we don’t.
Why do we want the prayers answered now? Because we want what we want.
Oh, we may couch it in, “God, your word says we weren’t made to be alone” or “You said You would give us the desires of our hearts.”
All the time, we are saying, “What gives?”
Then God pops in and says, “There’s the one.” “Here you go.”
All the while we have been blaming God, He has been working it out. What a loving God we serve!
Zach Williams and Dolly Parton have a wonderful song that reminds us of this.
Related Links
Zach Williams feat. Dolly Parton
How Do We Apply This?
We have to pay close attention to those we come into contact. We have to make sure we are following God.
Father God. Satan is trying hard to get us off our path of following You. Help us to remain strong in Your love. Amen.
What do you think?
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