Colossians (Part 2)
Colossians 1:15-20 gives us one of most intense decriptions of who Jesus is and of what he is doing. Each phrase has been studied very closely, and we are very grateful for all we can learn from this text. Paul’s intensity should be understood against a very specific backdrop of false teaching. His answer becomes even more awesome when read as a correction to some very enticing heresy. We have to read between the lines in order to understand how tricky his opponents were.
It seems that false teachers were gaining an audience in Colosse by claiming authority from both Jewish tradition and Greek -- probably Stoic -- philosophy (2:8). They advocated a very rigorous lifestyle of fasting and bodily discipline combined with a careful observance of certain days and festivals (2:16, 20-23). They claimed that if you followed their advice, you could enter a new humility and so become worthy of receiving new revelations via angelic messengers (2:18). Apparently this severe discipline and the new revelations would free you from temptations to any sensual indulgence (2:23). Do you get it? They are offering a form of almost complete holiness! Most people would understand freedom from temptation as a very good thing, and so these false teachers were using an apparent good to lure people away from Christ.
Paul thus needed to sketch who Jesus was fully enough to show the Colossians that any claim to wisdom or victory beyond Christ was complete foolishness. In the sermon I briefly summarized the gist of each phrase in 1:15-20. Here I will only point to the last phrase of verse 18: Jesus must have supremacy in everything. Everything!
God reconciles us through Jesus’ physical death for a purpose: He wants us to be more than free from sensual temptation. Verse 22 tells us God wants to present us as holy, without blemish, and free from accusation in every area of our lives. Of course this means the Colossian heretics hoped for too little! Their promise of Jesus plus our severest efforts could only yield less than what God wants to give us. Their vision of holiness was too small.
God calls us to embrace so much more than mere freedom from sensuality. As in Galatians 5:13, God calls us to have freedom to serve one another in love. I hope we won’t settle for anything less!
