False Teachers Series

#5~ Col.2: 8 -12 FALSE TEACHERS 12-22-13

* LET'S REMEMBER THAT VERSES 4-7 ARE--WARNING ABOUT "Enticing words" by the so called wise men of the day.

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* Verses 8--13 are mostly warning about the Philosophy of the free thinkers.

8Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

9For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

10And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: 11In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

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8Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

The Colossian heresy promoted itself as traditional. --- It could trace some or many of its ideas back to traditions among the Jews or the Greek philosophers or both. ---- Paul here warned that the tradition of men has no equal authority to the word of God.

~ Paul warns against, and exposes the Colossian heresy; he say's don't be cheated by philosophies and traditions.

It also has the ideas of robbing and plundering. - "Their goods were the salvation they had received from Christ"

~Both the Gentile and Jewish teachers were trying to deprive the Colossian believers of these truths.

~ The false teaching among the Colossians was marked by an emphasis on philosophy and empty deceit. --- Most of all, it was according to the tradition of men. It had the workings of man on it, not God.

~ This philosophy that threatened the Colossian Christians was a strange mix of early Gnosticism, Greek philosophy, local mystery religions, and Jewish mysticism.

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Gnosticism includes a very wide range of beliefs and is better viewed as a collection of religions sharing some common themes, rather than as one specific religion. ~~ The thought and practice especially of various cults of pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil. ~~ About 1664 it came about.

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* "Gnosis" is a Greek word for knowledge.

~ Gnosticism taught that God (as a Perfect Spirit) could not come into direct contact with the material world.

~Gnosticism taught that since God could not have direct contact with the material world that God Himself did not create the world, but He worked through lesser spirits or angels.

~ Paul took care to show that Jesus was the creator of the world (Colossians 1:15-16).

~Gnosticism (and some forms of Jewish mysticism) taught that God did not deal directly with man and the material world, but that He dealt with the world through a series of mediators.

~Paul took care to show that Jesus did the work of reconciliation Himself (Colossians 1:19-20).

~ Gnosticism (and some forms of Jewish mysticism) greatly esteemed these supposed mediators, and considered them angelic beings of a sort.

~ Paul was careful to warn the Colossians that angels should not be worshipped (Colossians 2:18).

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The connection to Jewish mysticism is seen from the way Paul brings forth a few more points.

* Jewish influence on Christianity emphasized dietary laws.

Paul took care to say that Christians were not under Jewish dietary laws (Colossians 2:16).

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9For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

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In this verse, Paul makes an air tight declaration of the full Deity of Jesus. -- Since all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus, He cannot be a halfway God or a junior god.

~ These Gnostic heresies** [system that combined Oriental theology and Greek philosophy] made a great separation between the spiritual and the material. -- That is why Paul needed to make it clear that all the fullness of the Godhead was in Jesus bodily, not in some strange, mystical sense.

~~ John also dealt with this false teaching in;

>1st. John 4: 1-3 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

2Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

3And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

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~Some of these Gnostics claimed that Jesus had no actual human body; that He only seemed to have one. --- Another of their false teaching said that the "Jesus the man" was separate and distinct from "the Spirit of Christ."