Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Colossians 2:16-23 | Date: March 7, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

All right, we’ve been saying that throughout this section, Paul is pushing the idea of the sufficiency of Christ. Evidently, this false teaching that had crept into the church at Colossae impinged on that, at least in some of its implications. And so Paul has been pressing the doctrine, actually, of the sufficiency of Christ and exploring the areas in which we can see that Christ is all-sufficient.

He probably picks up on some of their terminology in verse three: “In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Probably with the false teaching, there are some keywords there: wisdom and knowledge. They’ve had a superior insight of some kind with this new teaching. And Paul is saying, it’s all there in Christ already; all that you need is there. And then he explains that pointedly in verses nine and 10 because—or Christ is sufficient because—in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is God himself incarnate. How could we want, how could we need anything else beyond that? And furthermore, verse 10, you are complete in him, having this one joined in union with God himself incarnate in Christ. We cannot possibly need anything further.

And then in verses 11 to 15, which we’ve seen the last two weeks, Paul explores the two broad areas in which our completeness in Christ is seen. First of all, this broad area of transformation in Christ. He speaks in terms of spiritual circumcision; the old flesh has been stripped away, there’s a new enablement in Christ, or to use baptism, we’ve died with Christ, we’ve been raised to a new life, and now we experience a new enablement to live for God because of our union with Christ. Again, Christ is all we need, even for Christian living.

And then the next broad area is the area of justification or acceptance before God, particularly focusing on the idea of the forgiveness of sins, and then the triumphing over the spiritual powers that used to be given. Evidently, this was creeping into the church again with this false teaching—some particular status or reverence given to the demonic powers or the spirit beings somehow. And Paul says that in Christ’s justifying work for us on the cross and securing the forgiveness of sins, he has stripped any power that the demonic powers had over humanity at all. So we’re complete in Christ; we have all we need.

The Sufficiency of Christ Applied

Now we come to verses 16 to 23, and here we might call it the sufficiency of Christ applied. Because here in these verses, Paul makes some specific applications to their specific and particular situation there. You’ll recall in verses eight and following, he called this teaching that had come into the church—he described it as empty and deceptive and human tradition and philosophy. And then in verses nine and following, he starts expounding the sufficiency of Christ. And now we come to verse 16, and we have that word “therefore.” It’s an old saying the Bible teachers have used for generations, I think: whenever you see the word “therefore,” look and see what it’s there for. And what it’s doing, the word “therefore,” points back to what he’s been teaching, and now it’s drawing a conclusion based on what we have learned about the sufficiency of Christ, our acceptance in him, our enablement in him, his all-sufficiency. If that’s the case, then that’s the significance of “therefore.”

Therefore, verse 16: “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 a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Now here we’re given, evidently, a sampling of what the false teachers were pressing or imposing on the people at Colossae. And in short, it’s a very duty-oriented kind of teaching. Maybe we could call it a kind of legalism imposed on the people—various kinds of restrictions, responsibilities, duties that clearly go beyond the commands of God, but they’re being imposed on people. And that with a Jewish slant of some kind. Verse 16: “Let no one pass judgment on you in question of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.” These have Jewish overtones reflecting the old covenant regulations of the old covenant worship system. And he says, those are not necessary. Let no one pass judgment on you in those kinds of things.

Why? The answer is verse 17: “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” So Paul is saying here, just in broad sketch terms, that those regulations in the old covenant were prophetic. We call it typology—patterns that were set in place in the old covenant that pointed forward to some reality that is accomplished now in truth and in fullness in Christ. So he is saying here, in short, why would you bother yourself with the shadows when the substance has already come? So it’s more of the sufficiency of Christ theme that he’s pushing here. Christ is all I need. Why would you bother with the figures of him, the patterns that pointed to him, now that he has come and you have the reality itself? That, in a nutshell, is the idea of verses 16 and 17. They’re pointing you back to these old regulations, but now that the reality has come, why would you bother with them?

Foreshadowed in the Old Testament and Realized Now in Christ

So I think it’s appropriate then at this point just to take a couple of minutes and just sketch broadly the idea of the New Testament’s teaching on this notion of fulfillment in Christ and what was foreshadowed in the Old Testament and what is realized now in Christ. I have given the illustration before. Many times you’ve heard me say it that God did things over the centuries the opposite way from what we do it. If we have a big event, we make a movie about it after the fact, or we might write a book about it after the fact, commemorate it, point back to it, explain it; and there’s a sense in which the New Testament does that. What God does different from what we do is he wrote the book ahead of time, or he ran the movie ahead of time. And all of these patterns, and all of these pictures, and events, and people, and institutions of the Old Testament—they’re imposed on the Israelites in their worship—they had a prefiguring or an anticipatory function, looking forward to the big event that was still to come. So that when the event came, we had the structures in place to understand the significance of Christ.

And the Old Testament is full of that in many different ways. Now one passage that’s central in that discussion—why don’t we take time to look at it—Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five. Before we get there, let me back up again and just get our thinking on focus. So in the Old Testament, we have promises, specific promises, specific prophecies of the coming of Messiah, the coming of the servant of the Lord who will accomplish God’s saving purpose in history. But along with those promises and prophecies, we have these various institutions and events and people that themselves stand as types, pictures, foreshadowings of the reality that will come.

So we have, for example, the tabernacle, the place of the dwelling of God. Our attention is drawn to that at the incarnation of Christ. The Word was made flesh, dwelt among us, we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So we have now God in Christ, the real temple. But no, there’s more. There’s a significance of the temple imagery in the church itself because God indwells us. Collectively as a church, individually as believers, the Spirit of God indwells us and so we’re referred to as the temple. But no, there’s more. When we get to the book of Revelation, we find that there’s no temple there in the eternal state because God and the Lamb are there. There is the dwelling place of God, par excellence, finally reached and finally realized in its climactic form. All that was pre-shadowed ahead of time, foreshadowed, and then it comes to pass in reality.

You could talk about the priesthood. We have the priest representing the people of Israel to God. All of that foreshadowed the great priest who would come, Christ, who represents us to God and intercedes with God on our behalf, both in offering sacrifices—his sacrifice once and for all—and then pleading the merits of that sacrifice in his intercessory work.

We have also the sacrifices that were offered. Pointing forward, all of those animals that were sacrificed could not in themselves ever atone for human sin. They’re just not good enough. But they point forward to, and they establish the structure in which we can understand Jesus’ death. Here is the Lamb par excellence on the Day of Atonement, par excellence, who has come and offered himself in place of sinners, offering now sufficient atonement for the sins of his people. And these old institutions point forward to what is realized in Christ.

We have in the Old Covenant the institution of prophet, the one who speaks to the people from God, the one who makes God known to the people. Jesus is presented as the prophet par excellence. Hebrews chapter 1 deals with that in just a graphic kind of way. God spoke to our fathers in the old days, here and there and in piecemeal and this way and the other way, and we received revelation from God as valuable as it was. It was all occasional, it was in piecemeal and in different forms, but now he has spoken to us in his Son. There’s a climactic revelation from God in Christ himself. And that, of course, is brought forward even further then through the ministry of the Spirit through the apostles to the church.

Kingship is another one. The king in Israel, really picking up on the Genesis 3 prophecy of the champion who will come to defeat the tempter. These kings were to defeat the enemies and to lead the people in faithful living before God. One king after another failed, another king after another failed, and they failed, and all pointing forward to a great king who would come. In that same respect, David himself is a foreshadowing of Christ. In particular, David’s greater son, it was promised in 2 Samuel 7. David’s son would rule on the throne forever and forever. We have that prophecy and then David himself standing as the type and all of these kings that come afterwards—failure, failure, failure—finally pointing forward to the great King Jesus who comes and reigns over his people and conquers their sin and defeats our enemies.

We have Adam himself as a type of Christ. In fact, Romans chapter 5 calls him that: a type of Christ. Just as Adam represented humanity and in his failure and his rebellion against God brought all the world into condemnation, so Christ as the second Adam or the last Adam stands as the representative of his people and by his obedience and by his sacrifice secures their redemption for them. God deals with humanity in their respective heads, Adam and Christ. We are either in Adam or in Christ. And those kinds of anticipations are built into the Old Testament narrative.

Noah is another picture of Christ. It was in Noah and in his work that humanity was saved. Melchizedek is another picture of Christ in the Old Testament. You see these over and again. He was a priest and a king, foreshadowing the priestly kingship of Jesus, which is picked up in Psalm 110 and then in the book of Hebrews. All of these foreshadowing Jesus. Moses was a type of Christ leading the people of God and bringing the revelation of God to the people. Aaron was a pattern or a picture of Christ as the priest representing the people to God. David was another.

We have creation itself as a picture of the new creation that is brought in Christ. The exodus, the deliverance of the people of God out of their bondage, stands in the scriptures continually as a major theme culminating in the work of Christ bringing his people out of the bondage of sin and into the freedom of God’s sons. We’ve seen it here in this passage with regard to circumcision. That was a practice in the Old Testament that had a foreshadowing significance, picturing what we would receive in Christ.

I spent a couple of minutes with that just to show you that this is a sweeping feature of the Old Testament that’s stamped all over the Old Testament is this idea of anticipation, expectation. And if we follow the story of the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi, we get through and we say, he’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming. All these anticipations have been built in, in all of the various dimensions. That’s been built into the Old Testament narrative itself. So if the Old Testament is stamped by the idea of “he’s coming,” or anticipation, the New Testament is stamped with the idea of fulfillment. He’s here. He has come, and it’s Jesus, and now we can understand the significance of his work against the backdrop of all of these structures and patterns and things that have been set in place for us throughout the Old Testament scriptures.

I Have Not Come To Abolish Them, But To Fulfill Them

All right, that’s a broad thumbnail sketch of it all. In Matthew 5, verses 17 and 18, Jesus tells us this very thing. He makes a sweeping statement, verse 17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” Now that word “fulfill” always in Matthew has that idea of prophetic fulfillment—an anticipation that has come about and been realized or actualized in Christ. You see it throughout the infancy narratives in Matthew 1 and 2. Several times over you see that formula: “This and this happened, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet saying.” And it cites a prophecy, whether it’s Hosea or Jeremiah or whatever. It has that idea of anticipation and realization or actualization in Christ. And that’s what Jesus is saying here: “I’ve not come to abolish the law. I’m not going to discredit it and tear it down. I’ve come to fulfill it, to bring about what it has anticipated all along.”

Then verse 18, he presses it further: “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot”—or if you like the King James translation, not a jot or a tittle—”will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Now, an iota, that’s the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It’s kind of like our ‘i’, but it’s a little smaller with a little tail on the bottom—a yod. A jot, that’s a little extension of a letter in Hebrew. So you might have a resh that just is down like this—I should have had a screen for you to show you—it goes like this, resh. You put a little line on the bottom of it, it’s a bet. So it’s talking about the least little part of a letter. An iota, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet. A jot, the smallest part of a letter of a word in the Hebrew language. Every detail, okay, that’s the idea. Every last detail of the Old Testament, down to every jot and tittle, will be fulfilled in Jesus.

Now, Jesus expands on all that through the rest of Matthew chapter five. We don’t have time to go through that here, but he says in verses 19 and 20, therefore we don’t ignore the commandments and violate them, but the idea is that we’ve received a new reference point in Christ. So for example, throughout the rest of chapter five, you have this: “You’ve heard it said, but I say to you. You’ve heard it said, but I say to you.” For example, here, verse 21: “You’ve heard it said by those of old, ‘You shall not murder.’ And whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who’s angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Whoever says ‘you fool’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” You’ve heard it said, “don’t murder.” That’s one of the Ten Commandments. But I say to you—and he takes it further. You can’t even be angry and insult and be rude to your brother. So that in Jesus’ thinking here is how he, in this case, his law, his teaching, fulfills the Old Testament. The Old Testament said, “don’t murder.” I’m telling you—and he extends the requirement and deepens it in some considerable ways.

And he does that through the rest of chapter 5. You’ve heard it said, “don’t commit adultery.” I tell you, don’t even look at a woman to lust. Verse 31: you’ve heard, if you’re going to get a divorce, get the written paperwork done. I tell you, you don’t divorce. Two exceptions to that, I think, in the New Testament. But he’s speaking in broad terms: you heard it said, but I say to you, and he tightens it up and he restricts it. Verse 33, this matter of oaths, taking an oath: I tell you, you heard it said, you take an oath, say it this way; I tell you, let your yea be yea, let your nay be nay. He’s extending the responsibility. What he does through all of that is saying that the Old Testament law pointed forward and anticipated something that would be fulfilled in me and in my teaching as well.

So at the end of that, the bottom line if you work through all of that, is that Jesus now is establishing himself as a new point of reference. In all of this—”you’ve heard it said, but I say; you’ve heard it said, but I say to you”—he’s telling us that Moses now takes the back seat. I’m the new point of reference. What I say is what goes. The new law giver. There’s a lot in Matthew 1 to 5 in particular that presents Jesus as the new Moses, and here it comes to a climax in that way. All of that to show that in Jesus’ own teaching then, the Old Testament had a prophetic and anticipatory function of what is found in fullness in him.

Now, coming closer to Colossians 2 again, on one level, we can say then that the Old Covenant is obsolete. It’s been surpassed by a new covenant. The old covenant is no longer their point of reference. Jesus is, and the new covenant that he institutes. And so, for example, Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 3 that the old covenant is transitory. It’s been abolished. It’s been surpassed. He uses that kind of language.

And let me give you another example of this so you can see it in the New Testament. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 7. 1 Corinthians 7, verse 19: “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commands of God.” Now, read that again and situate yourself as a faithful Jew living under the old covenant. “Neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but the commandments of God.” Would you be scratching your head? Well, circumcision is a commandment of God, right? But something has happened in Paul’s thinking for him to make this contrast. Circumcision is nothing. What matters is the commandment of God. The only way you can say that is to say that that old covenant has been superseded by another. There’s another point of reference. We go for our commandments of God to somewhere other than Moses now.

Look over a page or so, 1 Corinthians 9, verses 19 to 23. 1 Corinthians 9:19: “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win the Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those who are under the law.” Now notice here, he says, “I can do that. I can be a Jew and I can keep the law. Parenthesis, just understand I’m not under that law.” Verse 21: “To those outside the law,” that is Gentiles, “I became as one outside the law. Another clarification is needed here. Not being outside of the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share it with them in its blessings.”

Now what’s important here is to notice that Paul puts himself in a third position. There’s the Jews under the law. He specifically says, “I’m not under that.” There’s the Gentiles who don’t have the law. I can be like that with them, only understand I’m not without law altogether. I’m still under the law of Christ. I’m in a third position. When I’m with one, I can act like that; with the other, I can act like that—keeping in mind, of course, that I’m under the law of Christ. Now, what’s important there to notice then is that Paul, while he’s able to flex either way and behave Jewishly in a Jewish context or not in a Gentile context, one, he doesn’t see himself as under the law of Moses. What he does see himself obliged to is the law of Christ. A new point of reference has come for Paul. He has a new allegiance. In some dramatic way, Moses has been eclipsed. And he’s been eclipsed by Christ.

So then, coming to Colossians 2 verse 16, “Let no one judge you with regard to food and drink,” those Old Testament food laws are no longer binding. And we know that from the New Testament. we know that from the law of Christ. We have a hint of that from Jesus himself in Mark chapter seven: it’s not that which goes into a man that makes him good or bad; it’s what comes out of him. But we have it dramatically taught for us in Acts chapter 10 with Peter’s vision of the sheet, and then eating and going to the Gentiles and so on—just a scandalous kind of thing. We had confirmation from God to do it, and then reported back accordingly to the apostles. One other passage that deals with that is Romans chapter 14, where Paul classifies the weaker brother as the one who still hangs on to those kinds of requirements. And then, of course, in 1 Timothy 4, Paul speaks very pointedly against those who make restrictions on what you can eat or drink.

The Substance Belongs To Christ

So on one level, we can say that the Old Testament food laws are no longer binding, and in that sense, the Old Covenant is obsolete. But on a deeper level, and coming to Paul’s point in verse 17, the Old Covenant is not just ended and surpassed, it’s fulfilled. That’s the important word. It has been fulfilled in a prophetic sense. Verse 17: “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” Those old laws had an anticipatory function. They looked ahead to a reality that has come now in Christ.

So for example, verse 16, the Sabbath, these festival days and holy days—you find that in the Old Covenant, but that had an anticipatory function. It anticipated a rest that is realized now in fullness in Christ and then climactically in the eternal state. So in Genesis chapter 2, we have the first mention of God resting on the seventh day. God resting. That day is left open. We’re left with the question: can man enter into that rest? We come into chapter 3 and there’s an apostasy from God, a rebellion of Adam against God. Will man ever be able to enter with God into his rest? Throughout the prophets, there’s anticipations of a rest that is to come in the eternal state and so on.

We come to the New Testament. And we have Jesus making the great announcement that we read last Sunday morning in a morning service: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And then Matthew follows that right up, chapter 12, verse one, with this account of Jesus and his disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath and the Pharisees making a big stink over it. And Jesus, rather than saying simply, “They’re not violating the Sabbath by plucking a few heads of grain and eating as we walk past the field”—that would have been the easy way to deal with it—but instead, he turns the whole scene into some kind of a Christological manifesto and says, “I’m an exceptional case.” And he even refers to himself as Lord of the Sabbath. You think, what’s that all about? What’s he going to do with the Sabbath? “Come to me and rest.” He’s Lord of the Sabbath. What does that mean?

Well, then we get to the epistles, and we have places like this: “Don’t let anyone judge you in terms of these holy days.” They’re a shadow of a substance which is common Christ. Paul does the same in Galatians. We get to Hebrews. We have the same thing, that this rest of God imposed on the Old Testament community—their weekly rest, their monthly, their yearly Sabbaths, and so on—all of that picked up again in their entrance into Canaan, which was their rest. All of that is anticipating a greater rest, Hebrews tells us, that has been realized in Christ. We get to the book of Revelation, and we finally find our eternal rest in the eternal state. And Paul is simply saying that—that all of this had an anticipatory function. Why would you go back to the shadows when you have the substance?

Now we mentioned this Wednesday evening in our study in Galatians’ context, but we should point it out here as well. On one hand, Paul can flex to the context. He’s with Jews, he can act like a Jew and he can keep the Sabbath or he can not keep the Sabbath. He can even take a Jewish vow in Acts chapter 21 and go to the temple for it and all of that. He can observe the Sabbath. And yet in Romans chapter 14, it’s the weaker brother. It’s the weaker brother that feels that he’s still obligated to do these things—weaker in the sense that he does not yet have a robust grasp of the significance of Christ, and that these things then should be left behind. And here in Colossians 2, as well as in Galatians, Paul just refuses the obligation to observe it. Let no one judge you in terms of these kinds of things. Don’t submit to that. Don’t stoop to something less than Christ. Don’t let someone shame you. It’s just the shadow. You have the reality. Again, the idea is Christ is all that I need. How could you possibly think you need more than that? If all of these things pointed forward to Christ, why do you think you have to go back to Sabbath obligations and so on?

Let No One Disqualify You

Verses 18 and 19 then press further: “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism”—that is, self-denials of various kinds—”worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” Now verse 18 then categorizes some requirements that were laid on them by these false teachers. Asceticism—if you have the NIV, it translates it “delighting in false humility.” The idea is that of some kinds of self-denial, whether it’s fastings or imposed taboos of various kinds, self-denials, added restrictions, regulations.

If you’re in a Roman Catholic context, think Lent. If you’re in a Pharisee context, think what Jesus said: you’re building a fence around the law with all of your extra rules and regulations. If you’re in a fundamentalist Christian context, think in terms of all of the extra requirements that have been laid on. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do—all of that that some of us have been taught from our youth up. I know of one president of a Fundamentalist Bible College. He was speaking to the ministerial students in the ministerial class one time, and he told all of the students, the men there, that they should never have physical relations with their wife on Saturday nights because Sunday they have to preach. And I’ve always thought that all of the guys sitting there probably said, “OK, where do you come up with these things?” It’s extra things laid on that you don’t need. That’s the asceticism kind of thing.

Worship of angels, calling on angels for protection, praying to the angels maybe. There was more and more of that even in a Jewish context in the intertestamental period, seeing the spirit beings as some kind of intermediaries of some sort. That might have its equivalent in our context to Roman Catholic statues—praying to the images, praying to Mary, other mediaries. Something more than God, something more than Christ is what we need, according to that. This next one, “going on in detail about visions”—some visionary or mystical experiences of some sort. Today that might be worship as a feeling that you get when you sing a song, mystical experiences where “I’ve experienced God and let me tell you what I’ve learned.” It’s extra-biblical kind of revelation.

Verse 18: “Let no one disqualify you by these things.” That’s umpire imagery. Athletic contests—what’s the idea of that word? “Let no one disqualify you by these things.” Don’t let anyone judge you as inferior. Don’t let anyone shame you on the basis of these kinds of things. Don’t let them impose this kind of thinking on you. Verse 18, again, these people are “puffed up without reason and by sensuous minds.” They feel superior; they think they have gained a holy reputation by their extra laws that have been laid on them. It’s just another form of spiritual pride. Verse 19: “they’re not holding fast to the head.” That is, all of these requirements are an added means to spiritual attainment. It’s a rejection of the sufficiency of Christ.

Why Do You Submit To Regulations?

And so, verses 20 and following, he gives his final appeal. “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you are still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—’Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch’—referring to the things that all perish as they are used? According to human precepts and teachings, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

Verse 20: in Christ you died, you’re buried with him, you’re risen with him to a new life. You have triumphed then over the elemental spirits of the world. They have no authority over you at all. And so verse 21, he gives us, I think, a sarcastic summary of what these false teachers are imposing on the people at Colossae: “Don’t handle it. Don’t taste it. Don’t touch it.” That’s the summary of their teaching. Maybe a bit of an oversimplistic reduction, but that’s what it seems to be. Some ascetic practices that were imposed on the people at Colossae, and Paul just sarcastically refers to it. Do you really think that that’s going to give you spiritual attainment?

And so verses 20 and 21 then together ask the simple question: why, being freed from that old world system, would you continue to behave as though you still belong to it? Do you see how this behavior that they’re imposing on you is a retrogression? It’s taking you away from the sufficiency of Christ and you’re submitting to rules that are just irrelevant. What Paul wants to press is that godliness, Christian living, spiritual attainment, Christianity itself—all of it is rooted in union with Jesus Christ and that’s enough. Dying with him, rising with him to a new life.

Now Paul here is referring to specific issues that are relevant to the Colossian church, but the point that he’s making has broader significance and broader application. These false teachers are saying you have to pursue these added regulations by way of spiritual attainment, and Paul just mocks it, says, “Doesn’t that sound silly? You do this and don’t do the other. Don’t touch that. Don’t handle that. You will have made it. That’s the mark of spiritual attainment.” You really think?

In fact, that was the problem with the Old Covenant itself. It made regulations too, remember? But the problem with it was it was only written on stone, not written on the heart. It couldn’t effect the change that it required. But we have that in Christ. The new covenant promises much more: that he’ll write his law in our hearts, and that is exactly what has happened in our union with Christ. So why do we reject these false teachers and their regimes of spiritual attainment? Verses 20 and 21, because they’re irrelevant and futile. Verse 22, they’re passing away. It’s things that perish. They’re just human. It’s human precepts and teaching. It’s just something someone came up with. Who cares? Verse 23, because they are ineffective. They’re of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. It cannot bring about the spiritual transformation or the spiritual attainment that they tell you that it can. All of that you have in union with Christ.

So again, Paul has pressed this matter of the union with Christ and the sufficiency of Christ. He’s pressed it in reference to Christ himself in his great value as God incarnate. He has pressed it with regard to the sufficiency of Christ’s work in his giving us spiritual attainment and enablement in union with him, our acceptance in Christ objectively before God, and now in terms of Christian living as well. All of that, Paul has put Christ at the center. If we go by these other rules, we are marginalizing Christ, and it’s an affront to his sufficiency. Paul presses then throughout all of this: if you have spiritual—in Christ you have spiritual fullness and spiritual attainment, refuse then to stoop to any program of spiritual development that implies in any way otherwise. We have what we need in Christ.

All right, any questions? Quickly, we’re almost at the end. Yes? I have two questions. All right.