11/30/18
Tom Lowe
IVC1: Don't Let Anyone Defraud You Of Your Reward (Col 2:18)
• “Special Notes” and “Scripture” appear as endnotes.
• NIV Bible is used throughout unless noted otherwise.
Colossians 2:18 (NIV)
Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.
COMMENTARY
Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.? (Colossians 2:18)
Admittedly, this passage is another difficult one, because a number of words and clauses have been interpreted differently by well-known Bible scholars; but such technical arguments lie outside the boundary of this exegesis; and we shall content ourselves by undertaking a study of the text as it stands in the New International Version.
The whole passage has been paraphrased as follows: “Let no man deprive you of the prize you have won fair and square. The impostor that does such things delights in debasing his body and living with the apparent modesty of an angel, and having superior sanctity in order to gain disciples. In spite of intruding into things which he has not seen; and, despite his apparent humility, his mind is carnal, and he is puffed up with a sense of his superior knowledge and piety.”
Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you.
“Do not let anyone . . . disqualify you”; judge you. The word disqualify occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is a word which was employed with reference to the distribution of prizes at the Grecian games, and means, to withhold the prize from anyone, to deprive them of the palm branch. Hence, it means to deprive anyone of a due reward: and the sense here is that they were to be on their guard in case the “reward” ?the crown of victory, for which they competed, should be taken from them by the dishonesty of others. That is what would happen if they should be persuaded to turn back, or to hang back in the race. The only way to secure the prize was to stay in the race which they were running at the time; but if they yielded to the philosophy of the Greeks, and the teachings of the Jews, they would be defrauded of this reward as certainly as a runner at the games would if the crown of victory were unjustly awarded to another. In this case, too, a real injustice would be done, though the apostle does not say it would be in the same manner. Here it would be by deception; in the case of the runner it would be by a wrong decision?but in either case the crown was lost. This exhortation has more force from this consideration. Against an unjust judge we could have no power; but we may take care that the reward is not snatched from us by deception.
The Colossians had fought and conquered under the direction of Christ, and He, as the sole Judge in this contest, had awarded the prize to them; but, the false teachers, pretending to have great modesty, humility, and sanctity, endeavored to turn them aside from the Gospel, and to persuade them to end in the flesh that which they had begun in the Spirit. The apostle warns them about these men.
Do not let anyone who delights in false humility . . . disqualify you.
The word “humility,” as used here, means “lowliness of mind, modesty, humbleness of demeanor”; and the apostle refers, without a doubt, to the spirit assumed (falsely assumed) by those against whom he would guard the Colossians?the spirit of modesty and of humility. The meaning is that they would not announce their opinions with dogmatic certainty, but they would put on the appearance of great modesty. In this way, they would become even more dangerous? for no false teachers are as dangerous as those who assume the spirit of great humility, and who manifest great reverence for divine things. These persons took pleasure in attempting to explore the hidden and perplexing things of religion. They wanted to appear to do this with a humble spirit and the modesty of an angel.
Do not let anyone who delights in . . . the worship of angels disqualify you.
It is very likely that the apostle alludes here to the Essenes{a], who were remarkably strict and devout, spent the main part of their time in the contemplation of the Divine Being, abstained from all sensual gratification, and attempted to live the life of angels upon earth. All the apostle says here perfectly agrees with their pretensions, and on this one supposition the entire passage is clear and easy. Many have understood the passage as referring to the adoration of angels, which seems to have been practiced among the Jews, who appear to have considered them to be a sort of mediator between God and man; presenting the prayers of men before the throne of God; and being, the eyes and ears of the great King. But this interpretation is not as likely as the first one mentioned.
This does not mean, in my opinion, that the false teachers would themselves worship angels or that they would teach others to do it for there is no reason to believe this. Certainly the Jewish teachers, whom the apostle seems to have had chiefly in his eye, would not do it; nor is there any evidence that any class of false teachers would deliberately teach that angels were to be worshipped. The reference is rather to the profound reverence; the spirit of lowly piety which the angels manifest, and to the fact that the teachers referred to would assume the same spirit, and were, therefore, the more dangerous. They would come professing profound regard for the great mysteries of religion, and for the incomprehensible perfections of the divinity, and would allegedly approach the subject with the awesome reverence which the angels have when they “look into these things;” 1 Peter 1:12.
Do not let anyone . . . disqualify you.
The prize is eternal life; and the promise of it is jeopardized for everyone who turns from the worship of the one and only Savior to worship angels, or any other creatures. Apparently, their false humility found expression in angel worship. It is therefore that lowliness that causes a man to think of himself as unworthy to come into fellowship with God, and therefore prompts the worship of angels. Such humility was perverted.
Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.
“Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen” is how the newest versions have it [the NIV for example], but the older translations have “Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have not seen” [or inquiring into them.]. The Greek word used here means to go in, or enter; then to investigate, to inquire. The proper meaning is not that a person is intruding, or making an impertinent inquiry, and I do not see that the apostle meant to characterize the inquiry here as such. He says that it was the object of their investigations to look, with great professed modesty and reverence, into those things which are not visible to the eye of mortals. The “things” which seem to be particularly referred to here, are the profound questions concerning the method of the divine existence; the ranks, orders, and service of angelic beings; and the obscure doctrines relating to divine rule and plans. These questions comprised most of the subjects of inquiry in the Oriental and Grecian philosophy, and the apostle apprehended that the inquiries into these would tend to draw the mind away from the “simplicity that is in Christ.” Of these subjects what can be known more than is revealed?
The Holy Spirit has made it clear that the things were actually seen by Paul; but whether of demoniacal origination (1 Samuel 28:11-20), or phenomena resulting from natural causation, or mistaken by him to be supernatural is not clear. Paul, not stopping to discuss the nature of the things he has seen, settles on the radical error, the tendency of such a one in all this to walk by SENSE (namely, what he haughtily prides himself on having SEEN), rather than by FAITH in the UNSEEN “Head” (Colossians 2:19; compare John 20:29; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Hebrews 11:1). His fleshly mind{b] answers to the things which he has seen, since his fleshliness betrays itself in priding himself on what he has seen, rather than on the unseen objects of faith. That the things seen may have been of demoniacal origin appears from 1 Timothy 4:1, “Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils” (Greek, “demons”). A warning to modern spiritualists.
they are puffed up{c] with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.
Who is the apostle referring to? The false teachers, of course. In spite of the acknowledged “humility,” the modesty, the angelic reverence, their mind was full of vain conceit, and self-confident, carnal wisdom. The two things are by no means incompatible?the men are apparently very meek and modest being sometimes the boldest in their speculations, and the most reckless in regard to speaking the truth. It is not so with true modesty, and real “angelic veneration,” but all this is sometimes assumed for the purpose of deceiving; and sometimes there is a resident appearance of modesty which is by no means an index of the true feelings of the soul. The most meek and modest men in appearance are sometimes the most proud and reckless in their exploration of the doctrines of religion. Such men are vainly puffed up{c] by fleshly minds{b], judging things not according to the word of God, and with a spiritual judgment, and according to a spiritual sense and experience, but according to their own carnal reasoning, and the vanity of their minds; being puffed and swelled with an high opinion of himself, of his great scrutiny and abilities, of his knowledge of things above, and of his capacity to penetrate into, and find out things which were not seen and known by others. This shows that his humility was forced, and only in outward appearance, and was not true and genuine.
Scripture and Special Notes
[a} The Essenes were a sect of Second Temple Judaism which flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. The Jewish historian Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers, and thousands lived throughout Roman Judaea, but they were fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the other two major sects at the time. The Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to voluntary poverty, daily immersion, and asceticism (their priestly class practiced celibacy).
[b} fleshly mind — Greek, “By the mind of his own flesh.” The flesh, or sensuous principle, is the fountain head from which his mind draws its craving after religious objects of sight, instead of, in true humility as a member, “holding fast the (unseen) Head.”
[c} “puffed up” implies that the previous so called “humility” (Greek, “lowliness of mind”) was really a “puffing up.”
