Charles Spurgeon, a great Baptist preacher around 150 years ago had a very large and very influential church in London. The church building seated 6,000 people and was packed every Sunday. People came from far and wide to hear Spurgeon preach.

        Spurgeon once invited a visiting American minister to preach at his church. The man came from a wing of Christianity that believes all the most pleasurable things in life are sinful. He was against dancing, against drinking, against smoking.  If movies had been invented, he would have been against movies. 

       This Sunday morning, at London Tabernacle, this American delivered a powerful tirade against the evils of tobacco.   Of course this was well before we knew about the health problems created by smoking and second-hand smoke. Tobacco use, for this preacher, was simply another sign of a terrible worldliness. He finished his sermon and sat down.

       There was a hush over the congregation.  They all knew that Charles Spurgeon smoked a pipe. Spurgeon stood and walked to the pulpit.  He said, "I'd like to thank my brother for his enthusiastically delivered words. I would also like him to know that despite what he's said, before bed each night I smoke a pipe to the glory of God and I will continue to do so.”

       How could Spurgeon be so confident that he was free to disregard the preacher’s earnest warning?  It was because Spurgeon had read, taken to heart, and applied the words of Colossians 2:16-19.

       Note that Paul starts this section with the word “therefore.”  Any time you come across the word “therefore” in the Bible – especially in Paul’s letters – you need to ask what it’s there for. In this case, it means that Paul is about to make a practical application of the general principles he has just proclaimed. Here Paul’s “therefore” points us to two things.  First, Paul has just told us that all of the fullness belongs to Christ.  Jesus owns it all.  Second, Paul has told us that Christ on the cross has “disarmed the rulers and authorities” that held us captive.

       Since Christ is everything and since the powers and authorities that once held power over human life are now nothing, we are now free from the old rules - the old ways of doing things.  We are now new people in Christ who walk by the Spirit of God.

       Because this is true, we need to live like it.  We are to claim our freedom.  Paul says that we are not to let anyone act as our judge in such a way as to drag us into attempting a relationship with God that’s based on anything other than Jesus.   

       Now Paul himself comes from a “do it by the rules” background. Paul was a Pharisee and a super-Pharisee.  This means that he knew the downside of legalism from hard personal experience. 

        He was a good man, dedicated to keeping the Jewish laws. He was so zealous for the law that he persecuted the early church.  In Philippians 3, he says that he was blameless as to righteousness under the law.  In other words, Paul was a world-class rule keeper.

       Yet all of this discipline, zeal, and dedication Paul labels garbage in contrast to knowing Jesus Christ. And avidly, passionately, Paul now warns the good people in the churches he loves to clear the same garbage from their lives.  Time and again Paul had seen good people go wrong in their attempts to earn God’s blessing through what they thought were good works.

        From his own experience, Paul knows that legalism depends on human judgment. Wherever righteousness is seen as growing out of following rules and carrying out regulations, somebody has to do the judging.

       So Paul says let no one take away your prize.

       Legalism is harsh in its spirit. One person can disqualify another, deprive him of his fellowship in the church, and rob him of his confidence in God.  It is harmful in its results. It frustrates the person who is judged and puffs up the so-called allegedly "spiritual person” who does the judging.  Legalism has no pity on people.  In the words of Max Lucado, “Legalism makes my opinion your burden, makes my opinion your boundary, makes my opinion your obligation.”

       Referees are a great help in football, where the object is not only to score touchdowns, but to score them in a way that does not infringe on the carefully laid-down rules. Umpires are indispensable to baseball where the outcome of the game may hinge on close decisions that are best made by a trained expert who is not committed to either team.

       But our relationship to God is not a game. Its success or failure cannot rest on human authority.  But this is just what happens in legalism. Somebody besides the Lord judges whether we are out of bounds in our conduct -- whether our performance is fair or foul.   Paul asks the Corinthians, “Who are you to judge the servant of another?”  But there are always those in the church who will answer, “I’ll be the judge.”

       So listen to Paul's language in Colossians 2:16: "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.”  These are human-made regulations enforced by self-appointed judges. 

       Legalism is anti-Christian. It poses human answers to problems only Christ can solve. This is where good people go wrong.  They try to make sense out of life, bring order to it, and find purpose in it without Jesus Christ. There is no way that this can be done.

       Now this is a very complex and confusing passage.  If you understand this sermon, then you, I and the Holy Spirit can all pat ourselves on the backs at the end of the day.

       I think you’ll find the outline especially helpful today.  But what is going on is that false teachers want the Colossians to accept what can only be called additions to Christ. They teach that Jesus Christ himself is not sufficient; that He is not unique; that He is one among many manifestations of God; and that it is necessary to know and to serve other divine powers in addition to Him.

      The false teachers don’t all agree with each other.  There isn’t just one Colossian heresy.  There are several attacking the church at the same time.  But from Colossians 2, we can distinguish five additions to Christ that these false teachers want to make. 

       First, some false teachers want to teach people an additional philosophy.  That’s back in verse 8. As they see it, the simple truth of Jesus Christ crucified is not enough. It has to be filled out by an elaborate system of pseudo-philosophical thought which only the spiritually elite intellectuals can understand.

       Second, some of the false teachers want Christians to accept a system of astrology.  That’s also in verse 8.  What Paul calls the elements of the world were the elemental spirits of the universe, especially of the stars and the planets. It is the claim of these false teachers that people are still under these influences and need a special knowledge, beyond that which Jesus can give, to be liberated from them.

        Third, another branch wants to impose circumcision on Christians.  They say that faith was not enough; circumcision has to be added. A badge in the flesh is to take the place of, or at least be an addition to, an attitude of the heart.

       Fourth, some false teachers they want to lay down ascetic rules and regulations.  That’s is verses 16 and 20-23. They want to introduce all kinds of rules and regulations about what a person might eat and drink and about what days must be observed as festivals and fasts. All the old Jewish regulations - and more - are to be brought back.

       Fifth, some want to introduce the worship of angels.  That’s in verse 18.  They teach that Jesus is one of many intermediaries between God and people and that all these intermediaries must receive their worship.  The Jews had a highly developed doctrine of angels and the Greek Gnostics believed in all kinds of intermediaries. They worshipped these, while the Christian knows that worship must be kept for God alone in Jesus Christ.

       Paul brands all these teachings "human precepts and doctrines.”  No matter how impressive they sound, they partake of human limitations, human weaknesses and human sin. And no religion that rests on human authority can alleviate our deepest needs.

       One part of the Colossian heresy stew was the Jewish food laws.

       In the first century a vast amount of rabbinical writing focused on things like circumcision, dietary laws like not mixing meat and dairy in the same meal – no cheeseburgers, people; and Sabbath keeping. This seems odd, because no devout rabbi would have said these matters were at the heart of the law. They knew the law’s essence: "Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” 

        So why the extreme focus on these externals?

        To answer, commentator James Dunn talks about what might be called "identity” or "boundary” markers. Dunn points out that groups have a tendency to be exclusive.  They like to know who is inside the group and who is outside. So they often adopt identity markers. These are highly visible, relatively superficial practices -- matters of vocabulary, or dress, or style -- whose purpose is to distinguish between those inside a group and those who are outside.

        For example, imagine you are driving through the Haight-Asbury district of San Francisco in the 1960's. If you're at a stoplight and a VW van pulls up next to you plastered with peace signs and "Make love not war” bumper stickers, driven by a long-haired, tie-dyed, granny-glasses- wearer, you know you're driving next to a hippie. If it were the 1980's and you were to see a BMW with a driver wearing Gucci shoes, a Rolex watch, moussed hair and nibbling on brie, you would know you were driving next to a yuppie. Bikers are recognizable from their preference in fashion color (black), fabric (leather), skin ornamentation (tattoo), and beverage of choice (too obvious to need mentioning.) Farmers and doctors and politicians and rock stars: all have their own ways of distinguishing who's in their fraternity.

        “With this in mind,” Dunne writes, “the purpose of circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath-keeping in the first century becomes clear. These were the boundary markers -- highly visible, superficial practices that allowed people to distinguish who was inside and who was outside the people of God.

       But Paul says that these markers are not for us as  men and woman of Christ. In Mark 7:19, Jesus declares all food clean. The old food laws have no more force. So, Paul says,  don’t let anyone try to tell you that they are there for you to keep.

       The same thing is true of new moons and Sabbaths. 

       Under Judaism the observance of such days, like the food-laws, was obligatory upon the Jews. But now the Christian has been freed from obligations of this kind. Paul says in Romans 14 that if a Christian wishes to restrict himself in matters of food and drink, or to set aside certain days for special observance, that’s just fine. But to regard them as matters of religious obligation is a backward step.  And it is totally wrong to try to impose them on other Christians as “things all real Christians should be doing.”

       This is because, Paul says, the Old Testament laws are just a shadow of what is to come.  Paul is using the images of Platonic philosophy here.  He says, the reality, the fullness belongs to Christ. 

       In their preoccupation with sacred foods and special holy seasons, the legalists had failed to realize that God's program had moved beyond the Old Testament.  In verse 17, Paul says of the ancient ceremonies, "These are only a shadow of what is to come.” Their whole purpose was to keep God's people separate from the Gentiles and to illustrate their commitment to God's covenant until Christ came.

       Here’s an example from Earl Palmer of University Presbyterian in Seattle to illustrate what the law was for and how it was being misused in Colossae.  .  He writes, “Imagine that you and your friends are suddenly stuck in a dark room – some kind of dungeon.  The room is inky black.  For all you know, there is a deep pit in the center of the room with pointed stakes at the bottom.  So you stay pressed against the wall and feel your way along slowly with your feet.  But then one of your companions reaches in his pocket and pulls out a tiny penlight.  This small light gives you just enough illumination to move slowly around the room until you find the light switch.  Then, with the room full of light, you can find your way out. 

       So you reach for the switch to turn on the light only to have your friend with the penlight grab your arm to stop you.  He’s the legalist.  He says, “What are you doing?  We need to keep honoring and following this penlight.  It saved our lives.’”

       That is true.  But the purpose of the pen light has now been fulfilled.  Its purpose was to show you the light switch. 

       It’s the same with the law.  Paul says in Galatians that the purpose of the law was to lead us to Christ.  To try to live by the law now that it has fulfilled its purpose is silly.  To return to the laws and rituals after the coming of Jesus is to turn back the clock that marks the forward progress of God's program in history.

       The Bible clearly says that rules and laws, regulation and discipline, ritual and ceremony are a shadow. "But the substance belongs to Christ” (Col 2:17).

       Jesus is the center of God's program.  Jesus is the hinge on which history turns.  Jesus is the pivot around which life moves.  Jesus is the substance on which everything else depends. Don't try to live without Jesus. To build your life on anyone or anything else is futile.

       Paul then continues in verse 19 by taking on the Gnostic side of the heresy.  He writes: “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.”

       Gnosticism debases people by insisting that they worship someone less than God - in this case, angels. It is totally subjective in its claims since it is based on visions which are private and personal and cannot be checked or verified. 

       Now Paul can out-vision anyone.  Read 1 Corinthians 12 for Paul’s account of being “lifted to the third heaven and there seeing things that are not lawful to speak of.”  But he also says that God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep from exalting himself – to keep him from being puffed-up.  The Gnostic visionaries need a dose of the same thing.

       In response to the claims of the Gnostic visionaries, Paul says that there is such a thing as a false humility. When they talked of the worship of angels, both the Gnostics and the Jews would have justified it by saying that God is so great and high and holy that we can never have direct access to Him and must be content to pray to the angels.  Some Roman Catholics have done the same thing with the saints.  But the great truth that Christianity shows us is that we each have direct access to God Himself through Jesus Christ.  In fact, God Himself actually lives in us through the Holy Spirit.

       Paul says of the false teachers is that they hold to their visions but they don’t hold fast to the head who is Jesus Christ.  It is true that a mind is a terrible thing to waste.  But a mind without a head is much worse. 

       Always Jesus!  The true church is tied to Jesus Christ.  He is the head of the body.  All the fullness belongs to Him.  In Jesus, we have already been made complete.

       So do not let anyone, anyone, act as your judge in such a way as to drag you into attempting a relationship with God that’s based on anything other than Jesus.  Jesus has set you free from that.  It is time for you to claim your freedom.