Colossians 2:20-23 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Wherefore The inference begun Col 2:16 is continued. A new inference follows Colossians 3:1. If ye be dead with Christ As by receiving the ordinance of baptism ye profess to be; from the rudiments, or elements, of the world See on Colossians 2:8. From those ceremonies, which persons among the Gentiles or the Jews are apt to place so much dependance on; why, as though living in the world In the manner you formerly did, and being still influenced by the spirit of the world, and associated with worldly people; are ye subject to ordinances To mere human institutions, heathen or Jewish? Why receive ye or use ordinances, which Christ hath not enjoined, and from which he hath made his followers free? Or the sense may be, Since you professed yourselves at your baptism to be spiritually dead with Christ, and by his death to be freed even from the ceremonies of the law, (though of God's own institution,) why should you submit to superstitious rites and ordinances of the like kind invented by men? Touch not Any unclean thing; taste not Any forbidden meat; handle not Any consecrated vessel. Most commentators suppose that the Jewish ceremonies only are here referred to, and that this was directed to the Jewish converts at Colosse: but “as I have no doubt,” says Macknight, “that it was intended for the Gentiles, I think the ordinances of which the apostle speaks were the rules of the Pythagoreans respecting abstinence from animal food, and of the Platonists concerning the worshipping of angels, condemned Colossians 2:18, which it seems some of the church at Colosse had actually begun to follow; perhaps at the persuasion of the Judaizing teachers, who wished to subject them to all the rites of the law.” Which all are to perish in the using All which things cannot be used, but they must perish in and by the use of them, being made merely for the body, and with it going to corruption, and having therefore no further use, no influence on the mind. The original expression, however, εις φθοραν τη αποχρησει, may be rendered, tend to corruption, in, or by, the abuse of them; and the word φθορα being often used by St. Peter, not for a natural, but a moral corruption, (see 2 Peter 1:4; 2 Peter 2:12; 2 Peter 2:19,) the meaning of the verse may be, that when these ceremonies are observed in compliance with the commands and doctrines of men as things necessary, they corrupt men who thus abuse them. Thus Doddridge: “All which things tend to the corruption of that excellent religion into which you have the honour to be initiated, by the abuse of them, according to the commandments and doctrines of mistaken and ill-designing men, who insist so eagerly upon them, as if they were essential to salvation.” Which things indeed have a show, a pretence, of wisdom Of being an excellent doctrine, or wise institution, and are, in that view, gravely insisted upon, especially by the more rigorous sects; in will-worship A worship, or service, which they themselves have devised. “The word εθελοθρησκεια nearly resembles the phrase found Colossians 2:18, θελων εν θρησκεια, delighting in the worship. But it can hardly be literally translated, so as to express the same idea. But the meaning is, a worship of human invention, consequently performed from one's own will.” And in an affected humility and neglecting of the body Greek, αφειδια σωματος, a not sparing of the body; namely, by subjecting it to much mortification, in denying it many gratifications, and putting it to many inconveniences. Not in any honour Namely, of the body; or not of any real value, as τιμη may be rendered, namely, before God: to the satisfying of the flesh Nor do they, upon the whole, mortify, but satisfy the flesh. They indulge man's corrupt nature, his self-will, pride, and desire of being distinguished from others. Doddridge reads, to the dishonourable satisfying of the flesh; their severity to the body, rigorous as it seemed, being no true mortification, nor tending to dispose the mind to it. On the contrary, while it puffed men up with a vain conceit of their own sanctity, it might be said rather to satisfy the flesh, even while it seemed most to afflict it.