CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Colossians 2:18. Let no man beguile you of your reward.—R.V. “let no man rob you of your prize.” There seems to be implied some such thought as this: Do not allow these heretical teachers to lay down for you the conditions on which the prize shall be yours; for when they pronounce in your favour, “the Lord, the righteous Judge,” pronounces against you. In a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels.—In acts of self-imposed abasement in the presence of invisible beings. St. John tells us of the rebuke administered by the angel before whom he prostrated himself: “See thou do it not: … worship God.” But there are men who would say, “Nay, my Lord,” and continue their forbidden worship. Intruding into those things which he hath not seen.—The change in the R.V. is considerable: “dwelling in the things which he hath seen.” The apostle is apparently speaking ironically of the boasted manifestations made to the Gnostic teachers.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Colossians 2:18-19
The Seductive Peril of a False Philosophy.
The apostle had warned the Colossians against the dangerous consequences of attaching too much importance to the ceremonial in religion, inasmuch as it was the substitution of the shadow for the substance. He now reveals the peril of being seduced by the theological error that insisted on interposition of angel mediators, which was the preference of an inferior member to the Head. In this verse the writer distinctly warns the Colossian Christians against the peril that threatened them, and exposes the presumptuous speculations of a false philosophy.
I. That the teachings of a false philosophy threaten to rob the believer of his most coveted reward.—“Let no man beguile you of your reward” (Colossians 2:18). The Christian’s career is a race; the present world is the stadium, or racecourse; Christ is the umpire—the dispenser of rewards; eternal life is the victor’s prize. The Colossians were in a fair way for winning the prize; they had duly entered the lists; they were contending bravely; but the false teachers unhappily crossed their path, sought to impede their progress, and to rob them of their reward. Error is subtle in its influence and pernicious in its effects. Many erroneous opinions may possibly be held without invalidating the salvation of the soul; but any error that in any degree depreciates our estimate of Christ and interrupts the advance of our Christian life is a robbery. It may be said that the dangerous speculations of a false philosophy are confined only to a few—the higher circle of thinkers. That is bad enough. But what is damaging the higher order of intellects will by-and-by reach the lower and work its mischief there. There is need for uninterrupted vigilance.
II. That a false philosophy advocates the most presumptuous and perilous speculations.—
1. It affects a spurious humility. God is unknowable to the limited and uncertain powers of man; He is too high to be accessible, and too much absorbed in loftier matters to concern Himself about individual man. He can be approached only through inferior beings, and their assistance should be humbly sought. So it reasons. But this humility was voluntary, self-induced, and was in reality another form of high spiritual pride. Humility, when it becomes self-conscious, ceases to have any value.
2. It invents a dangerous system of angelolatry.—“Worshipping of angels” (Colossians 2:18). The Jews were fond of philosophising about the dignity, offices, and ranks of the angelic powers; and many held the opinion that they were messengers who presented our prayers to God. The false teachers made the most of the authority they could derive from Jewish sources. They would tell how the law was given by the disposition of angels—that angels conducted the Israelites through the wilderness, and on various occasions appeared to patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. They would dwell on the weakness of man and his distance from God, and insist that homage should be paid to these angelic messengers as necessary mediators. Alas, how fatal has been the influence through the centuries of this delusive angelolatry! The apostle here condemns it, and thus sweeps away all ground for the Christ-dishonouring practices of invocation of saints and the worship of the Virgin.
3. It pretends to a knowledge of the mysterious.—“Intruding into those things which he hath not seen” (Colossians 2:18). Man is everywhere circled with mystery. It is one of the saddest moments of life when he first becomes conscious of the limitation of his own powers, and of his utter inability to fathom the mysteries which seem to invite his inquiry while they baffle his attempt. Locke somewhere says, a worm in the drawer of a cabinet, shut up in its tiny enclosure, might as well pretend to guess at the construction of the vast universe, as mortal man venture to speculate about the unseen world, except so far as revealed for purposes of salvation. But fools will rush in where angels fear to tread. The boast of possessing a profound knowledge of the mysterious is one of the marks of a false philosophy.
4. It is inflated with an excessive pride.—“Vainly puffed up by its fleshly mind” (Colossians 2:18). The carnal mind, which is enmity against God, rises to a pitch of reckless daring in its inventions, and, revelling in its own creative genius, is vainly puffed up with a conceit of novelty and with a fancied superiority over the humbler disciple. There is no state more dangerous than this or more difficult to change. It is proof against every ordinary method of recovery. The proud man lives “half-way down the slope to hell.” God only can break the delusive snare, humble the soul, and revoke its threatened doom.
III. That a false philosophy ignores the divine source of all spiritual increase.—
1. Christ is the great Head of the Church. He is the centre of its unity, the primal source of its life, authority, and influence. He founded the Church, and gave it shape, symmetry, and durableness. He alone is supreme—the Alpha and Omega—the living and only Head. To ignore Him is to forfeit the substantial for the shadowy—the rock for the precarious footing of the crumbling shale.
2. The Church is vitally and essentially united to Christ.—“From which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together” (Colossians 2:19). As the members of the human frame are joined to the head, and derive life, motion, and sensation from it by means of arteries, veins, nerves, and other attachments, so the spiritual members of Christ are knit to Him by invisible joints and bands, and depend on Him for sustenance, character, and influence.
3. The vital union of the Church with Christ is the condition of spiritual increase.—“Increaseth with the increase of God” (Colossians 2:19). Christ is the divine source of increase, and the Church can grow only as it receives nourishment from Him. The growth corresponds with its nature—it is divine; it increaseth with the increase of God. There may be a morbid increase, as there may be an unnatural enlargement of some part of the human body; but it is only the excessive inflation of worldly splendour and ecclesiastical pretension. Like Jonah’s gourd, such a growth may disappear as rapidly as it came. The true increase is that which comes from God, of which He is the source, and active, sustaining influence, and which advances in harmony with His will and purpose. Such an increase can be secured only by vital union with Christ.
Lessons.—
1. A false philosophy distorts the grandest truths.
2. A false philosophy substitutes for truth the most perilous speculations.
3. Against the teachings of a false philosophy be ever on your guard.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Colossians 2:18. Philosophic Vagaries—
I. Making pretence of superior knowledge.
II. Affecting a spurious humility in worship.
III. Inflated with pride.
IV. Dangerous to those sincerely seeking the truth.
Colossians 2:19. How a Church lives and grows.
I. The source of all the life of the body.—Christ is the Head, therefore the source from which all parts of the body partake of a common life. There are three symbols employed to represent the union of Christ with His Church—the vine, the body, and the marriage bond.
II. The various and harmonious action of all the parts.—
1. From Jesus comes all nourishment of the divine life, even when we think that we instruct or stimulate each other.
2. From Jesus comes the oneness of the body.
III. The consequent increase of the whole.—
1. The increase of life in the Church, both as a community and in its separate elements, depends on the harmonious activity of all the parts.
2. Is dependent on the activity of all, and sadly hampered when some are idle.
3. Depends on its vitality within and on the concurrent activity of all its members.
4. Depends not only on the action of all its parts, but on their health and vitality.
5. There is an increase which is not the increase of God.
IV. The personal hold of Jesus Christ which is the condition of all life and growth.—A firm, almost desperate clutch in which Love and Need, like two hands, clasp Him and will not let Him go. Such tenacious grip implies the adhesive energy of the whole nature—the mind laying hold on truth, the heart clinging to love, the will submitting to authority.—A. Maclaren.