Jan 27, 2019
Scripture Reading: Colossians 2:16-23
We are internally 'programmed' by our sinful hearts to trust in ourselves as the means to gain God's favor. This explains the reality that people all over the world give themselves to religious rituals, from fasting to prayer wheels to bodily mutilation.
The 'Colossian Heresy,' against which Paul is writing in this letter, included a mixture of Jewish rituals and pagan rituals. The people of the Colossian church were being encouraged to follow the rituals of the Mosaic law and to worship angels and to deny themselves certain God-ordained pleasures. The false teaching taught that such religious activity is the path to heaven, but was, in fact, "self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body" (Col 2:23).
The destructive danger of such teaching was that it undermined the centrality and necessity of Christ in the salvation of people ensnared by their sins. Colossians 2:16 begins with the word 'therefore,' which sends us back to what was said in the preceding paragraph about Jesus. In Christ, Christians have been "raised with him through faith and have been "made alive" (Col 2:12,13).
Therefore, having tasted the reality of spiritual life in Christ, we see the ineffectiveness of rituals. Vitality of a relationship with God can only come from knowing Him through Christ. No one becomes a child of the living God through some religious ceremony. Hoping in Christ, alone, is acceptable with God.