2022 Colossians Commentary

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”
Colossians 1:1-2

Shalom is a sense of completeness from having unity with God; as Paul intends His greeting here, through Christ’s grace that He has afforded to all who believe in Him and keep His commandments. Completeness in God through Christ doesn’t just bring peace, but it brings fullness and a total understanding of the purpose of life, which is to serve God and know Him and His ways ever the more each day as well as to share this love with everyone we encounter.

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“We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.”
Colossians 1:3-8

The lesson from this short continuation of yesterday’s introduction is that Paul is praying for the churches, that they hear the Gospel, the grace of God in truth, and that it transforms their lives and the lives of others. As we know from Psalm 119:142, “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth.” and Psalm 119:160, “The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.” And once new converts hear the truth, they ought to put it into action through the love of Christ in His Spirit. We also learn that we have a hope laid up for us in heaven, and this is critical. Because we are living for eternity, rather than for this world, we have the supernatural power of God encouraging us to put His Kingdom first, regardless of the consequences here, and this hope is what empowers us to endure in the faith, bear fruit and increase through the great commission at the end of Matthew 28.

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“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.”
Colossians 1:9-12 NASB1995

Because the disciples have been filled with “love in the Spirit,” Paul continues to pray for them and ask that they be filled with the “knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…” This is the knowledge-obedience cycle, which I presented in a Bible Study a few months back:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/94pfb4sottl0dtk/20210927_Knowledge-Obedience-Cycle_PDF.pdf?dl=0

In brief, we are “filled with the knowledge of God’s will” by reading and studying the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. We can’t do this in the flesh however, which is why Paul adds “in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” Jesus said we must worship “in spirit and truth,” and reading God’s Word is a form of worship, and thus we must have the Holy Spirit to understand the Truth of Scripture. Likewise, Paul noted that we needed to know the “spirit of the law and not the letter,” and so this means that the interpretation of God’s Word must be done with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is how we know, for instance, that being angry at a brother is akin to the commandment not to murder, or to look at a woman with lust is akin to breaking the commandment against committing adultery, as Jesus explains in Matthew 5. As we read in Hebrews 6:4-6, knowing and obeying the commandments becomes even more important in the Holy Spirit, lest we crucify Christ again and again.

In summary, we know that it is impossible to know God and His will without reading about what His will is in His law, and the Holy Spirit helps us to interpret it properly according to God’s true intent, in Christ. Peter talks about this in 2 Peter 1:5-7: “giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.” It is abundantly clear why we must pursue the knowledge of God’s will, for without it, how can we “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects”? “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3), and “This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it” (2 John 1:6), and “If you love Me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) and Luke 11:28, responding to someone who blessed His mother for bearing Him, Jesus said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Here’s one in the negative: “The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;” (1 John 2:4). You can’t please the Lord without keeping His commandments. He told us in Deuteronomy 12:28: “Be careful to listen to all these words which I command you, so that it may be well with you and your sons after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.” In the final third of his introduction, Paul is telling us the same thing.

Without obedience to God’s commandments, how do we obtain the “fruit in every good work”? The fruit of the Spirit includes love, which we’ve covered above in detail, “goodness,” which is defined by God’s commandments, “faithfulness,” which means faithfully following God’s commandments, and “self-control,” which means giving yourself over to the Holy Spirit so that He will help you keep God’s commandments and not fall into the temptation of sin. The fruit of the Spirit is obedience to God’s commandments. By obeying God’s commandments, He will open your eyes to His Word more and more, and He will turn His face toward you. Try it! The Holy Spirit will help teach you how to keep the Sabbath, for instance. It’s a miraculous and wonderful thing, but your heart must first be to obey. This is why we start with knowledge and end with more knowledge and the cycle continues into eternity, because God is infinite and knowledge of Him will literally take forever. Heaven won’t be boring, but will be super exciting as we get to know our God more and more every single day.

Once we are in this cycle, learning, obeying, learning some more, we will be strengthened by His power to continue in it, according to His glorious might. We will need to attain all “steadfastness and patience,” for there will be trials and tribulations along the way, for God chastens the sons and daughters whom He loves (Hebrews 12). In fact, “Here is the patience of the Saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:12). When we understand this cycle, how can we do anything but give thanks to God for his grace, yes, but also for the knowledge on how to live life according to His will. It is through His grace alone that we are “qualified … to share in the inheritance of the Saints in Light.” It is our obedience that we endure in along that narrow path, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14). Let us be among the few who find the narrow gate through our endurance to the faith, which involves doing the works that God has prepared beforehand for us to walk in them. (2 Ephesians 8-10). These commandments of God are not hard, especially when we have His help.

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“giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Colossians 1:12-14

These verses really finish the thoughts of the previous ones and highlight the problem of studying the writings of Paul verse by verse. I think it’s extremely dangerous to study Paul’s writing this way, and Peter agrees in 2 Peter 3:14-16, calling Paul’s writing “hard to understand.” He also said that “untaught and unstable” people would “distort” Paul’s writings to mean something that they don’t, “as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” To properly study a letter of Paul, the whole letter ought to be read as one unit, and then that single letter ought to be compared with all of Paul’s letters, and then all of Paul’s letters ought to be compared with the rest of Scripture. Such context is not just important, but required, to properly understand Paul. Peter, one of the 12, and part of Jesus’s inner circle, speaks this warning. This is not from me, but from the Holy Spirit through the pen of the one who first identified Yeshua as the Messiah (Jesus as the Christ).

So yes, we ought to give thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light (vs. 12) because we have chosen to obey the commandments of the Lord with faith in our Messiah Jesus (vs. 9-11). The reason that we ought to have a desire to obey the Lord, because we love Him, is given in today’s verses: “for He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Yes, it is because of the salvation we have in Christ—God’s grace—that impels us through our own free will to love our God who came in the flesh to obey His commandments. Because of this great free gift we are given, because our slate is wiped clean, we now have a stronger desire and impudence to obey and insure we do not “insult the spirit of grace” or put Christ’s sacrifice to an open shame. We have redemption in Him, if we choose to keep it through endurance.

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“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”
Colossians 1:15-20

As we move along in Colossians, a short letter to Messianic believers in Colossi, many whom he has never met, Paul writes a miniature version of Romans again, tying in Yeshua’s teachings from Mark 7. He adds some key theological details that I want to focus on up front in Colossians 1, because they are monumental to consider concerning the nature of God. There is a theology from Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived from 20 BC to 50 AD, called the “two powers” doctrine. Paul seems to be interpreting that philosophy as it pertains to the reality of Yeshua. It seems Philo, though not recognized as a prophet, should be read alongside Colossians here to give a full understanding of Paul’s terms. Philo’s writing would have been fairly well known in the First Century, and it happens to align perfectly with the Christian understanding of Yeshua as one-in-being with the Father.

Paul notes that the Father “has delivered us from the power of darkness;” namely, sin, “and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” So far, this is common Christian knowledge. Here’s Philo’s concepts: “He [Yeshua] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Two-powers doctrine indicates that the Old Testament identifies one God, with two powers, one which is invisible, the Father, and the other that appears before men, “the Angel of the Lord.” This Angel of the Lord is what we call a “Christophany” today, or a pre-incarnate visitation from God (the Son) in the visible form. The idea of a “son” is that the visible God emerges from the invisible God, but is not different in person from Him, just different in power or manifestation. In simple analogous terms, it’s like talking with someone face-to-face at a coffee shop or talking with the same person on the phone.

Another key detail is that Yeshua was “the firstborn of all creation,” which is not to say that Yeshua Himself was created, for “all things were created through Him and for Him.” He preexisted creation and was not Himself created, because He is one in being with the Father. However, He certainly was begotten by the Power of the Holy Spirit and born in the flesh through Mary, His virgin human mother. And because he died in the flesh and was resurrected from that body into a new, Heavenly body, he became “the firstborn of all creation.” 1 Corinthians 15 calls Him the “first fruits of God,” which is a nod to the Biblical First Fruits festival from Leviticus 23 on which He was resurrected, but also a prophetic truth that shows that like Yeshua, we also will die (or be changed in the blink of an eye) and take on the same Heavenly body that Yeshua took on. Prophetically, our resurrection is foreseen for the Fall Holy Convocation season that begins with Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets, continues through the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles, when God will Tabernacle with us again, and finishes with the Eighth Day, which represents the Eternal Kingdom to come. For Yeshua, His resurrection was a restoration for Him into what He was before, but with new experience having lived as one of us, but it will be a new thing for us when we become like Him.

It’s clear that Yeshua existed prior to creation, again, because “by Him all things were created that are in Heaven and that are on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.” Yeshua talks about this Himself in John 10:34-38 on Hanukkah at the Temple: “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Here Yeshua references Psalm 82 and says that He is the “Lord of the Council” of divine beings who had met in Heaven to be judged by God for leading mankind astray after false gods. These divine beings will “die like men” because they rebelled against God and led man astray. God, here a prophesy of Yeshua, will judge the earth and inherit all the nations.

Without going into this prophesy too deeply, the nations represent the Gentiles that Yeshua had come to save, but he came to the Jews fist, and then the Gentiles. These divine beings had been set over the nations prior to Christ’s coming to guard them, but they had neglected their duty and taken glory away from God Most High and instead taken the glory for themselves. God will destroy this one-third of Heaven that Satan deceived and led out of Heaven in rebellion against God. Here Paul notes that Yeshua created all of this; everything that is in Heaven, the thrones, dominions, principalities and powers. The two-thirds of angels who stand with Him still, these He also created. So too did Yeshua create everything on the Earth. He created all of this “for Him[self].” When we participate in bringing forth children, we develop the concept of God’s love in the love that we have for them, whether they obey and thrive or disobey and fall into the throes of life. Yeshua, our God and Creator, feels the same way toward us.

Just to make sure we don’t misinterpret that Yeshua was the “first born,” again meaning His resurrection from the dead, Paul writes “He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” Yeshua is, as He said in John 10, one in being with the Father, His own invisible attributes that are part of who He is and existed with Him in one person from and into eternity. Not only did Yeshua act as the Creator and the first born of the new creation, He is also “head of the body, the ecclesia,” which means that He is our God, King and Lord, and through faith in Him, we too can be united with Him and become a part of His congregation of chosen people who will live with Him forever. He has “preeminence” in all things, meaning that there is no one over Him. Paul confirms: “It pleased the Father [the invisible attributes of God] that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in Heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” Revelation 21 describes “a New Heaven and a New Earth,” which will be created on the Last Day, when Yeshua comes again to raise the dead, rapture those who are alive with Him, judge the Earth and make all things new.

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“And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.”
Colossians 1:21-23

In light of the previous verses, it should certainly humble us that God Most High has come in the flesh to take those of us who were “alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,” meaning violations of the law of God that He made for us for our benefit, and make us “reconciled in the body of His flesh through death” so that we can be presented “holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.” I do not boast in myself or anything that I might do or say, but only in Christ, for it is only by Him that I am saved. In fact, I’m not worthy of it in the least, and to think that I might be able to sit in the presence of the God who created the Heaven and the Earth and everything in it, that is beyond awe, that is fearsome. I am not good enough, I will be burned up in His Holy presence. But Christ! Yes, because of Christ’s covering, I can literally enter the throne room of God, but I will still revere the Most High God and do as He asks, because I love Him and because He saved me.

Note Paul’s caveat: “if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you heard.” We are grounded and steadfast by following God’s commandments, which Yeshua said we would follow, “if you love [Him] Me, you will keep My commandments.” We must continue in our faith, which is doing and not hearing, sinning no more, becoming perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect. What a glorious promise, and let us endure in it until the End. This is why Paul teaches, “warning every man” about the consequences of sin, but “teaching every man in all wisdom” that is given by God in His Word throughout Scripture, so that he may “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” Paul presents here again the structure of the faith from Revelation 14:12: obedience to the commandments and faith in Yeshua.

The word in Colossians 1:23 is “if,” Strong’s Greek 1487, and in Greek the word is “εἰ.” Here is a direct quote from the HELPS Word studies on this word: “1487 ei (a conditional conjunction) – if. 1487 /ei (followed by any verb) expresses "a condition, thought of as real, or to denote assumptions" (i.e. viewed as factual. for the sake of argument) (BAGD). Accordingly, 1487 (ei) should not be translated "since," but rather always "if" – since the assumption may only be portrayed as valid (true, factual).”

Paul says that our salvation is conditional. We must be grounded and steadfast in keeping the commandments of God, and we must also continue our faith in Jesus Christ, for our salvation is from grace alone, but our salvation is lost by “practicing lawlessness.”

Revelation 14:12 says that the Saints (those who inherit Heaven) must be patient, or endure in their faith. Paul uses many metaphors about running a race to win a prize, but in order to win we must “play by the rules.” And this same verse in Revelation also notes what we must endure in: “keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Jesus said Himself that Heaven and Earth would pass away before His commandments would pass away. John said anyone is a liar who thinks they are saved and shuns the commandments of God, or claims they don’t matter.

I urge you brothers and sisters to stop listening to the thorns and thistles; the wolves in sheep’s clothing, who tell you you can live like Hell and inherit Heaven, who say that grace is the easy-street walk to Heaven, when our Lord Jesus Christ made it clear that a sinful life that disregards His commandments is the wide road to Hell. The faith is not difficult to keep, because the love of Jesus is stronger than any other love and why would we not want to please Him? But tribulation will be plentiful for obeying our God. I count it all joy!

What we must do, brothers and sisters, is read the Word of God day and night (Psalm 1), the whole thing from Genesis to Revelation and ask God to open up the Scriptures to you, just like Jesus opened up the Scriptures to His two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. The Holy Spirit will do this for you if your heart is to obey. God will open up your heart and apparent contradictions will be made clear; the veil will literally come off your eyes, and it will be beautiful. Please trust in God and not man.

Addendum, responding to antinomian theology:

If you believe you can practice lawlessness and inherit Heaven, you practice the worst form of blasphemy known to man that was taught by Satan himself in the Garden of Eden to Eve, through which he conquered Adam and brought on the fall of Man. You turn the grace of God, which is Jesus Christ, into lewdness and insult the Spirit of God, for “Christ is NOT a minister of sin,” so wrote Paul. For those who believe in the false doctrine of “Once Saved, Always Saved,” I invite you to liberate yourself from this deception by watching this short teaching from Pastor Daniel Joseph: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmI6y1h4ekf7NvdzrRr__WRRjVjz1L0rE

Addendum, responding to Romans 8:35-39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Only a man’s own will caught in temptation can separate him from the love of Christ. No one or nothing else can separate a man who has been saved by Christ from Christ but the man himself. This is why Satan walks around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. He’s not trying to devour unbelievers or those who have not been saved, because he already has them. He’s looking to take believers away from their salvation, and sometimes he succeeds.

Consider the Israelites in the wilderness at Acacia Grove, who were untouchable by Balaam who could not curse them because they were under God’s protection, but Balaam could only bless them. His prophesies were among the most wonderful prophesies of Jesus in all of Scripture. The Israelites at that point had protection just as Romans 8:35-39 describes. Only when Balaam convinced the Midianite women to tempt the Israelites to commit adultery, fornication and idolatry were those who sinned destroyed. The temptation lead to their own choice to sin, which led to their own destruction. So it is with us when we sin against God, even while living in Christ. We cannot be touched by Satan and we have the power to overcome temptation by the Holy Spirit, but if we choose to succumb to it, we no longer have Christ’s protection. Our salvation is at risk without repentance, and we are doomed if we die without it.

Rather than it being impossible for a redeemed person to practice lawlessness, a ridiculous heresy, it is actually impossible for a redeemed person who then walks away from their faith to be renewed to the faith, because he or she has rejected the Holy Spirit that saved Him or her:

“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.”
Hebrews 6:4-8

“Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:3

“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the one to come.” (Matthew 12:32)

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

“He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 John 2:4)

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“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.”
Colossians 1:24-29

Paul shifts gears and talks about his own journey, a testimony to the people of Colossi, noting that not only does he “rejoice in [his] sufferings” but that as a different part of the Body of Christ than the head, which is Christ, he is enduring his own set of afflictions that are different than what Christ endured. If there is not real suffering and persecution going on in our lives on account of our faith, it’s time to reexamine our faith to make sure we are doing it the way Christ taught. “The Heavenly Man,” by Brother Yun, explains his sufferings that he endured in China for Christ. He compares the physical persecution in Chinese prisons to the psychological persecution of the Americas and he says he’d rather take the physical suffering. In any case, whatever form it comes in, we ought to “count it all joy” for the sake of learning perseverance, we read in James 1:2, because “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,” according to Romans 8:18.

Paul counts his suffering as joy due to His calling to teach the Gospel of Christ to the Gentiles. What better man to do it? He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, a Torah scholar beyond any that live today, who knew the Word of God so well he could use it in layers of metaphors with meaning so deep that it takes a lifetime to understand all of it. This is the reason we ought to study the Word of God day and night, for God wants us to understand His Word, and it is comprehensible as well as infinite, always calling us to learn more. The revelation of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) is the “mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations” that has “now been manifested to His saints,” whether Jew or Gentile. We know prophesy is authentic when it is fulfilled, and it thus increases our faith. As the disciples on the road to Emmaus, so must we examine the Torah and see all of the pages that testify of Jesus, for there isn’t a page without His presence.

Paul also writes here regarding the revelation to the Gentiles, for beforehand there was a wall of separation that prevented them from partaking in “the riches of glory,” but in Christ the “middle wall of separation” was torn down (Ephesians 2:14-16). Now He is the hope of glory for all who trust in Him. Because of this, “we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” Paul says it is for this purpose that he labors, but he also calls us to follow after the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We are indeed complete in Christ, ready for every good work. But we cannot keep this joy in for ourselves, but as He commanded, we must share it with everyone, whether they will listen or not. Is this what we’re doing?

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“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Colossians 2:1-3

Though Colossians 2:1-3 is in a new chapter, I want to point out that these chapter divisions, verse numbers, and section headers were artificially added much later. Scripture itself ought to be read without them. I find the verse numbers helpful for making references, but I often find the chapter divisions unhelpful, for these verses are really a continuation of the verses we read at the end of chapter 1 and are about the same thing. The verse numbers can be unhelpful, also, because many like to take verses out of context and use them to defend heresy. I point all this out just as a word of caution, for Scripture ought to be interpreted contextually, especially the writing of Paul, which can be confusing without its context—historical, contextual, and scriptural.

Paul points out a few extra truths that ought to be considered in these verses: 1) He is preaching through his letters to people he has never met. There are men in the faith who do this currently via YouTube video or the like, and it is just as worthy now as it was worthy then, so long as the teaching is true. Imagine a church in Laodicea gathering around when the elders received a letter from Paul, ready to read the writing and pour over the meaning of every word. This is what we should be doing as we read and reread these same letters. 2) The purpose of Paul writing is for encouragement in love, and his hope is that his letters will increase listeners/readers knowledge of Christ. 3) A true knowledge of God’s mystery is this: Christ is the Word of God (Scripture and so much more), embodied in the flesh, crucified and resurrected to institute the New Covenant. We ought to understand all of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, in the context of Christ, for every Word applies to us.

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“I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.”
Colossians 2:4-5

Don’t be deceived! “Take heed that no one deceives you” (Matthew 24:4). This is a recurring message in Scripture from the very beginning, when God said in Genesis 3:18 that Adam would have to deal with “thorns and thistles” on account of his sin, while trying to eat of the plants of the field, which is a metaphor for the World. Jesus used this metaphor Himself, as recorded in Matthew 7, saying that you cannot gather grapes from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles. The metaphor relates to true followers of Christ producing fruit for the Kingdom. For “every good tree bears good fruit but the bad tree bears bad fruit … you will know them by their fruits.” He follows this up by saying that “not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” but only those who do the will of the Father. The will of the Father is His commandments, which He has prepared beforehand so we can walk in them. Those who “practice lawlessness” will be left behind.

Isaiah in 30:9-11 warns about today’s heresy when he says, “These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction. They say to the seers, ‘Stop seeing visions!’ and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions. Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!” Jeremiah 6:14-15 notes:  “They dress the wound of My people with very little care, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all. Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse,” says the LORD.” Ezekiel 13:9-11 says the same thing: “My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and speak lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of My people or be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD. Because they have led My people astray, saying ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and whitewashing any flimsy wall that is built. Tell those whitewashing the wall that it will fall.”

Paul, who preaches Christ crucified for salvation and a life of righteousness (obedience to God’s commandments) by the power of the Holy Spirit, says the same thing in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3: “But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.” He speaks of “wolves in sheep’s clothing in multiple instances. Jesus uses these same words. Peter echoes the sentiment. The issue is this: False prophets will come out and say that you have peace, when there is no peace. They will say you have to do nothing, when Scripture repeatedly says that you must obey God. In fact, Yeshua prophesies about the End when He says in Revelation 22:12-13, “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Do you see it? “to render unto every man ACCORDING TO WHAT HE HAS DONE.” Do works matter? Jesus says so. I believe in Jesus, and I do what He says, for “How can you say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say?,” the Lord asks in Luke 6:46. “Faith without works is dead.”

Our flesh wants to believe that we can continue to live however we want and say a prayer and all will be well with us. There are many false preachers who preach this Word falsely to the destruction of many souls, because they “delude you with persuasive argument.” Paul writes in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” As Paul writes to the Colossians, he is “rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ,” and this is what we need to focus on. In Christ, we are saved from our sin to do good works. Good works take DISCIPLINE and STABILITY, or perseverance, or patience, or any other English word we might use as a synonym to say the same thing. And “Here is the patience of the Saints: here are they who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12).

The Holy Spirit is our helper for this end (John 14), but we must be willing participants through our faith, and as we know from James 2, “faith without works is dead.” Faith is not a concept or a feeling or a desire or a belief, “for even the demons believe, and tremble,” but faith is an action. It is what we bear on our right hand, for we bear either the Mark of God, which is to do the works of the law (see Deuteronomy 5-6), or the Mark of the Beast, which is to do the “dead works” of the world; namely, lawlessness. There is no in between. We must keep the commandments of God because we believe, not just by our actions, but also within our minds, our hearts and our souls, and any other teaching is a different Gospel and a different Jesus, one who never existed and won’t ever exist. Our Lord Jesus came in the flesh, died for our sins, and rose from the dead so that we might be saved by grace, and then He asked us to follow Him, even unto death on a cross. This is a narrow, difficult road that is completely alien to the ways of this world. There are “few who find it.” I exhort you brothers and sisters to be among those few.

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“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”
Colossians 2:6-8

These verses say one thing very clearly that we all agree on: Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMashiach) is the cornerstone, the foundation of our faith, and without Him there is no salvation and nor is there even an invitation to begin to understand the mysteries of God. As Gentiles, we have no part in salvation or the promised inheritance of God apart from Christ. What’s more, as Jews, we also lack any path to eternal life apart from Christ. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) This goes for Gentiles and for Jews. Anyone, any human, who does not both believe in Messiah Yeshua and trust in His promises and then act on His commandments with obedience to show our reliance and trust in Him, will not make it into the Kingdom of God. Jesus says so repeatedly, and Paul is making this abundantly clear in these verses.

Paul had just finished telling us not to be deceived, and so as he moves on in the text, he explains where the truth is: We must be “firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed.” This is the structure of the faith: “Be firmly rooted and now being built up in Him” equals “keep the faith of Jesus” from Revelation 14:12; “established in your faith, just as you were instructed” equals “keep the commandments of God” from Revelation 14:12. These are the two witnesses needed to inherit the Kingdom of God. We ought to be grateful that we even have the opportunity to be saved, let alone the salvation itself. We don’t deserve it. Just as Noah was not a perfect man and didn’t deserve to be the patriarch for every man and woman alive today, but still God saved him for this purpose on the Ark while he destroyed the rest of the world, so to do we not deserve our inheritance, but yet God has saved us through Christ to inherit eternal life, if we will only enter through that single door that leads there.

But Paul returns to his prior exhortation against false teachers, saying, “see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” There are five things here that need to be explained:

1) “philosophy”: The Greek Gentiles were developing the principles of gnosticism around the time of Paul’s writing, and the Greek Gentiles were his audience. Gnosticism is the philosophy of knowing. The gnostics largely rejected the idea that Christ came “in the flesh,” and thus they say He had not actually died and resurrected, but rather than He came in the Spirit and thus gave the appearance of these things, but never actually accomplished it. I don’t need to explain the problem with this philosophy, because it is apparent. We must “test the spirits” by asking whether Christ has “come in the flesh.” This is the test to determine true faith. Today you might hear people refer to “reason” or “science,” when neither reason nor science are actually applied to their thinking. They think we should be able to “think through” everything, and even when that thought contradicts the Word of God, it must be pursued as truth. As Christians we believe Christ is Truth and His law is Truth, for He embodied the law.

2) ”empty deception”: This is the one that grace-only Christians are dealing with. There is an emptiness in the idea that God’s law is done away with and we somehow still follow it without any action, thought or intention of our own; that we are not willing participants in our relationship with God. This is the lie that Satan told Eve in the Garden. “You will not surely die” if you violate God’s commandments, when God said that indeed, “you will surely die.” Satan added the truth: “You will be like God” and “your eyes will be opened,” but this too was packaged in a lie. They were already like God, they were “made in the image of God,” and their action didn’t change that. Their eyes were opened to see good and evil, but their experience of perfect innocence is what God intended for them, and what he intends for us through Christ. Righteousness is another way to understand “perfect innocence,” and that righteousness requires both faith and trust in Jesus as well as obedience to God’s commandments. The Holy Spirit helps us do this, but we must be actors who fulfill the greatest commandment, to “love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strength.” We love Him by doing what He has commanded, as He told us repeatedly.

3) “according to the tradition of men”: Both Pharisees in Jesus’s day, Orthodox Jews today and grace-only Christians are dealing with this problem today. Read Mark 7 for clarification of the problem. Consider, in part, verses 8-9: Jesus said, “ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do. He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” I could and have written entire hour-long sermons on this point, but the short of this is that the Pharisees, the Orthodox Jews, and most Christians today follow after “the traditions of men,” but reject the commandments of God. Washing hands before eating bread, washing pitchers and cups were commandment for the priests inside the temple, but the Pharisees had made this a law that applies to everyone all the time, telling people they sinned if they did not wash their hands. This was not a commandment of God. …

… Continuing in Mark 7, Jesus adds that God had commanded (fifth commandment) that we honor our father and mother, but the Pharisees had come up with a law called “Corban,” which said that if you gave your money to the Temple, you no longer had to care for your parents in old age because you had given your money to God. This strikes me as similar to the Catholic Church’s indulgences, to buy forgiveness of sins from the Church, a lie that Luther rightly rejected and used as a basis for his schism from the church. Only Jesus forgives sins from His completed work on the cross. The only way to honor your mother and father is to actually do this work and take care of them, and you should also give your tithe according to the law. We could get into syncretism with this teaching also, which is the ancient practice of bringing pagan tradition into the Church in order to garner more conversions from the pagans around us. …

… Constantine advocated for this by calling Christians to worship on “the day of the Sun,” instead of following God’s commandment to keep the Sabbath Holy, which was the clear practice of Jesus and all of his disciples, even the Gentiles among them. It’s rather sad, but a Catholic Priest pointed out that Protestants were worshiping “according to the traditions of men” rather than following the commandments of God when they broke away from the Catholic Church. He intended to call them hypocrites, for they left the Catholic Church because they wanted to follow the “commandments of God,” and sadly, this bishop was right on this particular point:

… From “Plain talk about the Protestantism of Today,” by Msgr. Segur, 1868, https://archive.org/details/PlainTalkAboutTheProtestantism: “It is worth its while to remember that this observance of the Sabbath,— in which, after all, the only Protestant worship consists,—not only has no foundation in the Bible, but it is in flagrant contradiction with its letter, which commands rest on the Sabbath, which is Saturday. It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church.” …

… In other words, they were keeping the traditions of men rather than the commandments of God, and I agree. Many Christians do this also by keeping the pagan feast to Mithras on Dec. 25 and the pagan feast to Ishtar the fertility goddess in the Spring, because the Catholic Church created these syncretistic practices to convert pagans to Catholicism, putting Christian names on otherwise pagan festivals. God has commanded us clearly in Leviticus 23 and other places what Holy Convocations He wants us to follow, and the Last Supper was a Passover Seder, about which Jesus commanded: “Do this in memory of Me.” He was, after all, the Pascal Lamb. There are books I could write about all of this evidence, but suffice it to say through a clear reading of Scripture, God hates it when we keep our own traditions and slap His name on it. There is nothing, in fact, that He gets angrier about in all of Scripture. I for one have repented of these dead works and have turned to obeying God instead, something Christ has commanded us to do.

4) “according to the elementary principles of the world”: This one is simple. It’s paganism. It’s a continuation of what we’ve been discussing, but in more direct terms. When you collect easter eggs and decorate with bunnies, you are celebrating a pagan feast of fertility to the goddess Ishtar, who has had many names throughout history in the various pagan cultures of the world. She was known as Astaroth in ancient Israel, and God split Israel in two because Solomon was allowing her to be worshipped as the “Queen of Heaven.” Mary worship today is derived from this same history. The legends of this goddess were derived from the city of Babel, when the Queen Mother had relations with her son, who was held in high esteem as the “son of God;” this is Mithras, this is Apollo, this is the “son of god” that appears in every pagan culture, it is derived from Nimrod, who was a hunter and was killed by a boar. This is where the tradition of eating ham (an abomination to God) to celebrate his birthday is derived. …

… It’s even more basic and base than this, for sexual fertility is certainly an “elementary principle of the world” that Paul often wrote about. He taught that sexual immorality is one of the easiest ways for a Christian to fall away, and all of the pagan rites celebrated promiscuity with cultish orgies to get closer to their gods and sacrifice of their infants to Ba’al and Moloch to support a stronger harvest season. These Satanic practices are what Paul is referring to here, and Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles, was calling them out of those Pagan traditions. Today, he calls you and me out of them, because sadly, they have made their way into church tradition and are now considered “Christian,” when in fact, they are nothing of the sort. They are as Satanic now as they ever were.

5) “according to Christ”: This leads to the glorious conclusion, which leads us back to where we started. We must center our faith on Christ, who is the Word of God, the law of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us, who suffered, died and was buried, who rose from the dead on the third day, who promised He was going away to prepare a place for us in the Kingdom of God if we would simply love Him and trust in Him by keeping His commandments, and upon doing what He commanded us, He would send His Holy Spirit to dwell within us and help us (John 14). He does this by circumcising our hearts from the sin that had dwelt there, and by writing the law of God on our hearts as we meditate on it day and night. It’s interpretation becomes apparent. It’s exercise becomes a delight, a joy—in fact, it is my greatest joy in life! This is what it means to live according to Christ, for there is no other Truth than what He represents and no other way to live other than what He commanded us.

I can tell you plainly that by following Christ, by putting Yeshua first in my life, by doing what He has commanded me from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, and everything in between, I have personally been set apart from the world and am now living in the world, but not of the world. I have experienced many of the things that Jesus warned us would happen when we follow Him, short of torture or execution on a tree—but I am willing to do that, also, for the Lord, if He desires it of me. For it is my belief that not a single bit of this life is worth preserving, but everything here is rubbish, as Paul writes, in comparison with the Kingdom that is coming, that Christ is preparing for those who love Him and keep His commandments. Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” To fear God is to do as He commanded. As His bride, this becomes an act of love to do what pleases our husband, and one day He intends to return for the marriage supper. Will we be ready?

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“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;”
Colossians 2:9-10

The trinity doctrine is truth, and I believe in it, but I think that there is more precise language that helps to explain how God is “echad” in the Hebrew or “one” in English. It’s a difficult concept to articulate, but I think it best to simply say Jesus is God in His fullness, and God is Jesus in His fullness, and the Holy Spirit is God and Jesus in His fullness. These are the three powers, or the three manifestations of God. The word “persons” is accurate; however, I find that it creates stumbling blocks for unitarians because it implies “three” separate entities, when it is clear that God, in whatever form, is one entity with three manifestations. Unitarians, whatever their form, deny this truth, and my heart is to reach them for Christ. Most commonly today we find unitarians as Jehovah Witnesses or Orthodox Jews. They have a number of “proof texts” that they take out of context to deny the divinity of Christ.

I have never seen a better refutation of unitarian beliefs than Pastor Daniel Joseph’s 12-part sermon series called, “Is Jesus God?” I pray that it blesses you and increases your faith, as it did for me: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmI6y1h4ekf5JoADI85gecLhrR1fkPw5k

Look to Jesus’s prayer to the Father in John 17 for a parallel verse to our reading in Colossians, for it shows how Yeshua is God, but in Him, we can become one with God also, as a bride becomes one with her husband. The same word, “echad,” is used in Genesis when God says a man and women leave their parents to become “one flesh.” They become “echad.” Yeshua and Yahweh are the same God, but we as believers can be “one” with them: Here’s verses 20-23 in John 17: “I do not pray for these [apostles] alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

Another wonderful New Testament description of how Yeshua came in the flesh is Philippians 2:5-11: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Every tongue will confess that “Yeshua HaMashiach is Yahweh, to the Glory of Elohim.” This is as divine a statement as one can get, and yet Yeshua in the flesh did not use the fullness of His godly power, but rather humbled Himself and took on flesh to live as one of us. As an unblemished lamb, unleavened bread, a perfect man without sin, He was able to take on our sin on the cross. His Godly power was fully realized through His resurrection, upon which He defeated sin and death and became the firstfruits of salvation.

Another powerful text, comes from John 8:58, “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” That’s “ego eimi,” or “I am who I am,” the Greek version of Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, the Hebrew for “I am who I am.” Digging deeper, we know that Yahweh literally is a different form of the verb “to be,” which means, “He who causes to be,” or in common English, “the Creator.” Yeshua, the Hebrew form of Jesus’s name, means “Yah is salvation,” and the longer form of His name, Yehoshua, means “Yahweh is salvation.” So when Paul writes in Philippians 2, “every tongue shall confess that Yeshua is Yahweh, to the glory of Elohim,” He is saying in no uncertain terms that Jesus is God. Look back a few verses to my mention of Philo, who taught concerning the “two powers doctrine” of ancient Israel; the invisible God and the visible God, or God on the throne of glory, whose face cannot be seen, lest you die, and the Angel of God, or God who can be seen—even wrestled with in the case of Jacob, and we shall not die, but rather live.

John wrote His Gospel with Philo’s philosophy in mind, for the “Memre,” “Miltha,” or “Meltha,” in Aramaic, the “Logos” in Greek, the “Debar/Devar” in Hebrew, the “Word” in English, is found throughout the Old Testament, for it was the “Word of God” who gave the 10 commandments, and the “Word of God” who created the worlds and everything in them, and the “Word of God” was what our image was based on. The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, John writes.

Interesting to point out are these passages in the Jewish encyclopedia volume 8, pages 464-465 (https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10618-memra) that only begin to scratch the surface of “the Word” in the Old Testament:

“In the Targum, the memra figures constantly as the manifestation of the divine power, or as God's messenger in place of God Himself, wherever the predicate is not in conformity with the dignity or the spirituality of the Deity. Instead of the Scriptural "You have not believed in the Lord," Targum Deuteronomy 1:32 has "You have not believed in the word of the Lord”; instead of "I shall require it [vengeance] from him," Targum Deuteronomy 18:19 has "My word shall require it." "The Memra," instead of "the Lord," is "the consuming fire" in (Targum Deuteronomy 9:3).”

“Like the Shekinah [Holy Spirit] (compare Targum Numbers 23:21), the Memra is accordingly the manifestation of God. "The Memra brings Israel nigh unto God and sits on His throne receiving the prayers of Israel" (Targum Jerusalem to Deuteronomy 4:7). It shielded Noah from the flood (Targum Jerusalem to Genesis 7:16) ... it is the guardian of Jacob (Genesis 28:20-21, 35:3) and of Israel (Targum Jerusalem to Exodus 12:23, 29).”

It is clear that Yeshua (Jesus), the Word who became flesh, is God, and through Him, we can become God’s bride and become “one” with Him, also.

I’ve done three Bible studies on this topic, which are available here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nx09pd740uurie2/20210427_StudyofScripturePDF.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mdqs8o8d9feq6jy/20210525_TheWordofGodPDF.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6e5mx7k7oki7o92/20210727_NatureOfGod-PDF.pdf?dl=0

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“and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”
Colossians 2:11-12

Yeshua said in John 3:5, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” These aren’t just gestures, they’re essential. We see Paul, when He Himself became a Christian, was immediately baptized: “Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.” (Acts 9:18). When the Eunuch came to believe, he too was immediately baptized: “Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.” (Acts 8:36-38). There is an urgency to baptism, and there is also a requirement that you first confess “with your mouth and your heart” (Romans 10:9) that Jesus Christ is God, who came in the flesh, died for our sins and was risen from the dead as the first fruits of salvation.

Baptism is listed as one of six “elementary principles of the faith” in Hebrews 6, and until one is baptized, one’s sins are not yet buried in Christ. This Mikvah is essential for salvation: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 3:21). John the Baptist baptized folks also, but his baptism was not enough. Apollos was teaching Jesus and the “baptism of John,” but when Pricilla and Aquilla came to him, they “taught him the way more accurately.” (Acts 18:24-28) John said in Luke 3:16, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John spoke about the “circumcision made without hands,” as we read about today, and once Yeshua was risen from the dead on the first Messianic Shavuot, the disciples received the Holy Spirit and were circumcised in their hearts. Their sin was literally cut away by the Holy Spirit from their innermost part. This “seal” is a sign of salvation.

The book of Galatians is all about circumcision. I wrote about it extensively there, but here is a brief excerpt that gets into this mystery:

Acts 15 sets the stage for what Paul is writing about in Galatians, for it is the subject matter of the letter, and we should reference it here for this verse of Colossians. I’m going to dig in and provide some commentary concerning it. Galatians, a book primarily about Gentiles being grafted in to the Olive Tree that is Israel, deals with the mark of the Old Covenant, circumcision, verses the circumcision of the heart that takes place in the New Covenant, the “circumcision made without hands.” The epistle deals quite heavily with the practices of circumcision and the question as to whether Gentiles coming into the faith have to circumcise themselves as adults.

We see in Acts 15:1: “And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’.” And in verse 2, Paul and Barnabas had “no small dispute” with them, and went to Jerusalem “to the apostles and elders, about this question.”

First off, we see that they are going to Jerusalem to address the question of adult circumcision, but then in verse 5, we read that the sect of the Pharisees rose up in Jerusalem and expanded the query, by saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” This is important, because the apostles will judge both matters in the upcoming verses. The conjunction “and” separates the two different concepts of the verse and the apostles will handle them separately.

In verses 6-11, Peter explains that these Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit prior to being circumcised, and this phenomenon is verification of the concept that these new believers were circumcised in their hearts, and thus a physical circumcision, which is an outward sign of the first covenant, was not needed for salvation. See again in Genesis 17:11: “You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.” The physical circumcision is a sign of the first covenant. Peter continues by asking why such a burden ought to be put on the Gentiles, when their fathers themselves had not kept it and when a dispensation of a second covenant was now taking root.

The next part is an area that trips up many Christians, for Peter then clarifies that salvation does not come through the law of God, either, but it comes by grace through faith in the death of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection unto life. This is the truth. For a point of clarification, we must examine this concept spelled out by Paul in Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” And so these very verses summarize the whole of the faith, which is that we are saved by grace alone through faith in Jesus, and no work of the law that we ever do can possibly save us. This is a process called justification, and its work is complete if the faith is real.

Now, the next verse of Ephesians clarifies that once we are justified by grace, we must repent and walk in the commandments of God, which are the “good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” This is the structure of the faith, which we see spelled out in Revelation 14:12: The saints are those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” And so, we see this same structure being spelled out in Acts and then in Galatians, also, and as I’ve already pointed out, many times in Colossians. Once we are saved or justified by grace, we are then sanctified by following the law with the help of the Holy Spirit. We literally “go and sin no more,” as Jesus commanded the adulterer to do in John 8:11. You also see in all of James 2 that “faith without works is dead,” meaning that you begin the journey through faith in Jesus, but you walk in endurance toward the prize by following the law (Philippians 3:12-16, Hebrews 12:1-11) with the help of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26).

If one does not seek God with all his or her heart (Jeremiah 29:13), he or she risks falling from the grace of Christ and losing the salvation gained. Satan works overtime to accomplish this, as we read in 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Be vigilant in what? Well, in keeping the law, of course. We’ve already seen various verses that warn about the risk of not turning toward obedience after salvation. To recap, here are the most relevant: Hebrews 6:4-6, Hebrews 10:26-27, Romans 11:22, Philippians 2:12-13, Matthew 7:21-23, and the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23. And so, salvation is the critical first step, and sanctification is the equally important step two, which is required for the believer to receive his or her inheritance when Christ returns. On the testimony of 2 or 3, a thing is established” (2 Corinthians 13:1, Matthew 18:16, Hebrews 10:28, Deuteronomy 19:15).

Moving on in Acts 15, we see James make a judgment that becomes the verdict of the Jerusalem Council in verses 13-21. He notes importantly that Gentiles coming into the faith must immediately “abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.” In other words, new baby Christians must make their temple clean immediately upon entering the faith. That is the first step. But after this, they will continue to learn “Moses,” meaning the law of God given to Moses, in the synagogues every Sabbath. This is the same structure of the faith. The Gentiles have been called to “seek the Lord” and they are “called by My name,” says the Lord. In other words, they are saved by grace through faith in the Messiah Jesus. They receive the Holy Spirit. And then they attend church/synagogue every Sabbath and learn the law.

The purpose of God’s law is to convict the believer with Godly sorrow, and that Godly sorrow leads to repentance, and that repentance leads to obedience. Reference the initial sections written above on the purpose of the Word, and you will see 2 Peter 1 describes full well the progression from faith to virtue, which is captured in the immediate commands of James in Acts 15. From virtue, the progression goes on to knowledge, which James also addresses with his comment about attendance in the synagogue to learn the law of God given through Moses. It is only from this knowledge of the law that the Christian can develop self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and sacrificial love, clearly the advanced walk of a mature Christian.

And so we see that the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 addresses both questions asked by the sect of believing Pharisees, and in simple terms, describes the whole Christian walk. In conclusion, adult circumcision, the mark of the first covenant, is unnecessary for new believers who come into the faith as adults because they are under the new covenant. The law of God, on the other hand, will be learned each Sabbath and followed upon conviction by the Holy Spirit—it is written onto our hearts in the New Covenant. The law does not justify us, but it absolutely does work to sanctify us, and outside of the law we are condemned by lawlessness. The law is written on our hearts as part of our spiritual circumcision, and works with the Holy Spirit to lead us in endurance to the Kingdom of Heaven, which is our glorification in Christ.

When we read Galatians 4:21-31, we must be sure to understand verse 21 in context: “Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?” The problem is that Gentiles in Galatia are turning to circumcise themselves in the flesh, at the prompting of Pharisaic Jews who are telling them this is necessary for them to be adopted into the faith. The circumcision of the flesh is a “sign” of the Old Covenant (Genesis 17:9-11). The key word here is “sign.” We are not under the Old Covenant, though, we are under the New Covenant in Christ. Paul points out assuredly: Yes, circumcision is required to be welcomed into the faith, however, the sign of this covenant is not physical circumcision but spiritual circumcision: “In Him [Christ] you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,…” (Colossians 2:11).

Paul’s whole point in Galatians 4:21 is that these Gentiles are fulfilling the law in the New Covenant through their circumcision by the Holy Spirit, which cuts out the sin from their hearts and leads them in ways everlasting. Why then would they subject themselves to the requirements of the Old Covenant? They ought not do so. Once there is a circumcision of the heart, why need there be another? To seek additional requirements not commanded by God is sin, and this is something that Jesus often accused the Pharisees of doing, such as in Mark 7:6-8: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’  For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.” Jeremiah 31:31-34 speaks to this New Covenant and the changes that it would bring, and in Deuteronomy 30:6, “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” This too is a prophesy of the New Covenant, as well as what I believe the law intended from the beginning. God wants us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. He told us this directly when He spoke to the woman at the well. Keeping the law in love with Yeshua is worship, and it must be done in Spirit and Truth. However, that being said, while the Holy Spirit can and does imprint the law on the hearts of those who believe, we must study the Torah every day to get to know the heart of God better and better. The nuance, the metaphors, the parables, the innuendos. It’s not only fascinating to see the heart of God, but it is FUN! It’s a joy. When we interpret and obey the law of God in spirit and truth with full love of our savior Yeshua, it brings GREAT JOY and FREEDOM!

And so, we see that in Christ, we must pursue baptism unto our spiritual death, and resurrection into a new, “born again” life in Christ, as well as circumcision of the heart, which is receipt of the Holy Spirit and the law of God being written on our hearts. With this, we are equipped “in Christ” to live a godly life, obeying the commandments of God out of a deep desire to please God Most High and love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. Through the Holy Spirit, we also love our neighbor as ourselves. Praise be to God!

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“When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
Colossians 2:13-15

What glorious wonder! On account of Yeshua’s death on the cross, and resurrection from the dead, we are forgiven of our transgressions against God, which lead to death. We read in Ezekiel 18:4, “Behold, every soul belongs to Me; both father and son are Mine. The soul who sins is the one who will die.” And we read in Hebrews 10:28, “Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” And importantly, James 2:10, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” This is what it means to be dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh. However, because of Christ, we have been given mercy and we have been freed from the chains of sin and death. We read an analogous verse in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As we’ve seen in Ephesians 2:8-9, grace is a free gift through faith, and it is the only salvation we need.

Do not be deceived: A word of warning about false teachers came just before this text in Colossians 2:13-15. We covered them in great detail. Jesus opposed the Pharisees and their Rabbinical law; not once did He oppose the law of God. Jesus was crucified because the High Priest misinterpreted who He was and considered His testimony to be blasphemy. This act by the Priests themselves was true blasphemy, but even then the Lord says in Zechariah 12:10: “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” Upon Jesus’s return, this sin will be revealed to those who committed it, and they will mourn. All will stand before Him on that day and be judged, the righteous to everlasting life, the lawless to everlasting punishment.

So here, Paul writes how Jesus made a public display of the “rulers and authorities” who he had just spoken about, these folks who taught others to keep the law of man, the tradition of the elders, but rejected the law of God. While they believed they had victory over a blasphemer and had put Him to death, the Lord would rise from death and have victory over what they were doing to Him; He would expose them as the workers of blasphemy, those who were dead in their transgressions and uncircumcision of their flesh. And so the “certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us” was that judgment of man to condemn us for infractions under the law of man, the tradition of the elders. This is what the Lord has put to death, for He is the new High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and this is an eternal order. He is the new Mediator between God and Man, and we look only to Jesus now as Rabbi, to instruct us in the matters of the law.

And while we are saved by grace, we read in Ephesians 2:10, “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Yes, these good works that God has prepared beforehand are the commandments of God found throughout Torah, the laws that the Pharisees subjugated under their own authority, under their own tradition. Because we are saved by grace and given a clean slate on account of Christ’s death for us, we are a new creation and it is our imperative to walk in righteousness with the power of the Holy Spirit on account of our salvation. The punishment for sin is still death, but if we walk in the newness of life that we have in Christ, we are forgiven of this sin and no man can condemn us for we have been freed by Christ. Yes, those who stumble in one point are now free to repent in Christ, and walk away from sin, but God forbid they practice lawlessness: Hebrews 10:29 makes this clear: “how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” When we are made new in the death of our Lord, it is incumbent on us to then live in Christ and follow Him, being sanctified by His Holy Spirit and following the law of God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, loving our neighbor as ourselves. This is what we can expect from one who is truly saved by grace. Such gratitude that we will do His will out of love.

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“Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.”
Colossians 2:16-19

Puritan preacher Thomas Watson said, “Take every word [of Scripture] as spoken to yourselves. When the word thunders against sin, think thus: ‘God means my sins;’ when it presseth any duty, ‘God intends me in this.’ Many put off Scripture from themselves as if it only concerned those who lived in the time when it was written; but if you intend to profit by the word, bring it home to yourselves: a medicine will do no good, unless it be applied.”

What a solid introduction to Scripture’s most abused verses in the whole book, with Galatians being a close second. These verses have been used for centuries to teach false doctrine; namely, that when God commanded His people to keep to a certain diet and to keep His Sabbath and Holy Feast days, that He didn’t really mean it. This philosophy of the Pharisees comes from Satan Himself, and sadly it has been adopted by the Church. They call God’s commandments “legalism,” completely missing the point of Scripture as well as Jesus’s rebuke of true legalism. Read Mark 7 for clarity on this point. His complaint that Jewish leaders were teaching the commandments of MEN or the tradition of the elders, and that they were not keeping the commandments of God. This is the same complaint that Jesus levies against the false church today, which teaches that the law was for a different time. Without the law, we do not know what is good and we do not know how to love; in other words, without the law, it is IMPOSSIBLE to be a Christian who follows Jesus.

As I introduce today’s verse, it’s important to know that the deceptions regarding the law held by most Christians today goes back to nearly the beginning of the Church. In the 2nd Century, the heresies of men came out like a volcanic eruption, covering the Truth with molten lava, which sadly has hardened over the centuries into solid false doctrine. The devotional writer today, and the writings above my own in this commentary are the false teachings that have persisted. I encourage you to abandon these teachings and turn to Scripture alone, with the help of Jesus’s Holy Spirit, to see right here in the text something completely different than what you have been taught by the legacy of the early heretics. Make no mistake. You are lost if you continue in this deception, and I plead with you to hear me out as I share the Truth with you. Jesus said on the last day He will say, “depart from me you who practice lawlessness.” How much worse will it be for those who teach it?

Paul, a scholar, a Pharisee who was miraculously saved in a vision of Christ on his way to Damascus, wrote with literary devices and nuance that must be carefully studied (see 2 Peter 3:15-16), and today’s passage is among the most important to dig into of all. There is a simple explanation, but I will expound on it—to make sure the evidence is insurmountable for you—so that you can be led away from deception. In Colossians (pay attention to these verses), Paul uses an “inclusio,” which is a literary device that operates with bookends, with the center section being defined by those bookends. The inclusio here is Colossians 2:8 on one end, and Colossians 2:20-23 on the other, and you cannot interpret Colossians 2:16-19 without this full context.

Colossians 2:8: “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”

Colossians 2:20-23: “Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Before we continue, let me ask you, When “GOD SPOKE ALL THESE WORDS” and commanded that we keep the Sabbath holy, that we keep HIS feasts forever, and that we eat clean animals not unclean animals, which are an abomination, were those “the commandments and doctrines of men?” How can we read this plain English, translated from the plain Greek, and declare that the commandments that God said were given FOREVER are somehow done away with. How can we say this when Jesus Himself said that this would NEVER happen: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Is it not clear that Jesus Himself is God in the flesh, who gave the commandments to Moses, who made it abundantly clear to us when He came in the flesh that these commandments would NEVER be done away with? Deception is strong, but look at the words and what they say. And then He said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Do we follow Jesus or do we follow the false teachers who misinterpret Paul, who Paul warned us about in bookends right around these verses we are studying today so that we can’t possibly be confused. Sadly, as men and women in the weakness of the flesh, we would rather follow the traditions of men than the commandments of God, we would rather take the wide road than the narrow path, because it’s easier. This is how Eve was deceived by Satan in the Garden of Eden, and it is how so many Christians today have been deceived by the early Church heretics who led so many thousands astray. As for me and my house, I will serve the Lord; I am trying to do that now.

So in Colossians 2:8, where Paul says, “Beware lest anyone CHEAT you,” the word is from Strong’s 4812, sulagógeó, which means “plunder, lead captive; make victim by fraud.” He’s talking about the Pharisees who came to accuse the early Jewish Christians because they were obeying God’s law, but going against the “traditions of men” the “commandments of men” or the “tradition of the elders.” Let me point out this happening in real time in Mark 7:

“Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem. Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.” What did Paul say here in today’s verse? “no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink.”

Let’s take a closer look at the Pharisees perspective of their oral law, which is now written down in their Talmud. In “Everyman’s Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinical Sages,” by Abraham Cohen, we read” “Whoever eats bread without first washing his hands is as though he had sinned with a harlot.” Do you see this? It gets worse: “Whoever makes light of the washing of the hands will be UPROOTED FROM THE WORLD.” It continues: “A person who despises the washing of the hands before a meal is to be excommunicated. There is even a benediction prescribed for the purpose.” It continues. … “The cleanliness applied also to vessels used during a meal, ‘Rinse the cup before drinking, and after drinking.” Isn’t this exactly what Jesus was facing in Mark 7? Yes! This is also what Paul is writing about in Colossians: These doctrines do not come from the Old Testament, they come from men. They are not from God, they are traditions of the elders.

Allow me to show you how bad this gets, and the absolute EVIL that Jesus was up against, which continued into the days of Paul: In the Midrash Sifre from Talmud, we read: “Even if they [the Rabbis] instruct you that your right is left, or your left is right, you must obey them.” Sanhedrin 11:3a says, “A more strict rule applies to the teachings of scribes than to the teachings of Torah.” The Midrash, Pesikta Rabbati reads, “A person must not say, ‘I will not keep the commandment of the elders because they are not from the Torah [Old Testament]. The Almighty says to such a person, ‘No, my son! Rather all that they decree upon you, observe! As it is written, ‘According to the instruction which they teach’” Are you shocked yet? It gets way, way worse. Look at the next sentence from this same source: “Even I [God] must obey their decree, as it is written, ‘You will decree, and He will fulfill it.” And they called Jesus a blasphemer! If what this Rabbinical writing teaches isn’t the height of Satanic blasphemy, I don’t know what is.

So when we read, “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day,” Paul is talking about the Pharisees who were judging Messianic believers according to the tradition of the elders, just like you see in Mark 7, and they were treating the “commandments of men” or the “tradition of elders” as more important that God’s commandments in Scripture, saying, as I have shown you, that the elders themselves can order God Almighty around, and God will do as they say. Who is God in that model? Do you see why Jesus and Paul were so adamant to address this? Do you see why Jesus needed to come in the flesh to set things right with HIS LAW? It is God’s law that matters, not the commandments or traditions of men or elders. We Christians also need to WATCH ourselves that we do not become Pharisees, putting the teachings of men above the commandments of God. Beware! Watch! Be very afraid! So many have been deceived by the false teachings of men.

In Mark 7, Jesus confirms this is the intent of His teaching in verses 5-8: “He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, and in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.” He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For [God’s Word to] Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.” Jesus makes clear that God’s commandments are what we must obey, not the commandments of men.

Do you know there are thousands of words written in the Talmud about how to properly keep the Sabbath? Do you know some Jews today won’t even turn on a light switch or open their refrigerator because they see that as “work.” Others won’t even cut their toenails or brush their teeth. There is literally a Talmudic law that says one may not pick their nose on the Sabbath. I wish I was joking. I’m not. God made NO such commandment. This is not the commandment of God, these are the doctrines of men, the traditions of the elders. This is what Jesus was talking about in Mark 7 and Paul in Colossians regarding “food and drink” and this is what Paul is talking about in Colossians about judging others regarding the Sabbath here also. God commanded that we eat clean meats and not eat unclean meats. Paul says nothing about this here. He follows the commandments of God. God commanded we keep the Sabbath (Saturday) holy, or set apart, for Him for our own joy, and Jesus followed this command, even in Matthew 12, and Paul obeyed this command as we see repeatedly through Acts. He rejected the commandments of men.
 
Here are the Sabbath examples which are a parallel to Mark 7, which is about the food and drink component of Paul’s writing here in Colossians. Consider: “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” Was it unlawful to forage on the Sabbath! Absolutely NOT! It was unlawful to harvest on the Sabbath, yes, but the disciples were not harvesting, they were foraging. What they were doing was lawful, but the Pharisees had declared it unlawful. Consider John 5:10: “The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, ‘It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.’” This was only unlawful according to the “tradition of the elders,” for carrying your bed after you have been healed from paralysis by the Messiah is not a violation of God’s Sabbath law. How would it be? The Lord did a miracle, He brought His grace, His love and His deliverance to a man who was suffering. This fulfills Sabbath law. It in now way violates it.

Consider one more example in Luke 13:10-14: “Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.” Wait a second, do you see that? He was obeying the commandment of God and teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Look how this continues: “And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.” Yes, this woman was also obeying God’s Sabbath law, despite her infirmity. Scripture continues: “But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.” Healing is absolutely and unequivocally lawful for the Sabbath; in fact, it glorifies God! Look what happens next: “But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.’”

Like Satan, this “ruler of the synagogue” had quoted Scripture accurately. Satan said, “you will obtain the knowledge of good and evil” if you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This was a true statement. However, he surrounded it with a false statement: “You will not surely die” if you disobey the commandments of God. This ruler accurately quoted the commandment, but he inaccurately said that healing a “spirit of infirmity” is “work.” It is not work, it is the Glory of God, the deliverance of God, and a miracle of healing that ought to be the very focus of what we do on Sabbath. We gather together on the Sabbath to heal each other using the Word of God, to build each other up in the faith, to encourage one another, to exhort one another. What Jesus did here was completely lawful, but the “ruler of the synagogue” was citing the “tradition of the elders,” the “commandments of men” from the oral tradition. This was his sin.

I hope and pray that you see that Jesus, and His student Paul, are writing about a serious problem that the early Church was dealing with; namely, Jewish leaders did not want to cede their “godly” authority that they built up for themselves and submit themselves to God Almighty. They gave more prominence to their own commandments, but ignored the commandments of God. They gave favor to those who kept the tradition they taught, and judged the ones who violated their tradition. The law of freedom is the law given by God, not the law given by men, and Christ came to free us from these false teachings and redirect us to follow Him, for Jesus, our eternal Rabbi, was God Almighty who gave the commandments and then came in the flesh to teach us how to follow them properly, with love, by the Holy Spirit of God.

So “let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility.” Who was cheating them? The Pharisees, the rulers of the synagogue, the Sanhedrin, the Jewish rulers who were drunk with their own authority and put themselves above God Most High, even missing it when He came to them in the flesh. But the Jews whom Jesus came to free were following their Messiah, and Paul, teaching to both the Jews and the Gentiles, who are ONE in Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), said you could be free by obeying God and not man. Peter said this exact thing in Acts 5:29. In fact, we show that we love God when we keep His commandments (1 John 5:3), and “He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 John 2:4). You can’t be more precise and specific than this. You can’t be more clear. Did Paul contradict this? If you believe so, then you MUST throw out Paul’s writings and obey Christ instead. I contend with vigor and enthusiasm that Paul absolutely did not contradict Christ, but upheld absolutely every part of Christ’s teachings, including obedience to God’s law, and Paul would be even more inspired to do this as a former Pharisee himself.

In Colossians 2:17, we see that Paul says “a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day” are “a shadow of the things to come.” Please don’t be deceived and believe this is a negative statement; it is far from it. Paul is saying that God’s feasts in Leviticus 23, His Sabbaths, the Fourth Commandment given by God to Moses, and the New Moons, God’s ordering of the months, the seasons and the years from Creation, are prophetic concerning the End of Days and the Kingdom of God. A shadow is something that proceeds someone or something when the sun is shining on it. It is not the real thing, by no means, but it is an image of it, a shadow of it, a sign of it, a prophetic representation of it that God has given us so that we will know what to expect from eternity. The Sabbath and the feasts, when practiced according to the Law of God, are the greatest blessing we can possibly experience in this life. There is nothing better than resting in the Lord and worshipping Him, spending time with Him and getting to know Him and His ways better. This is a shadow of the things to come. It is a wonderful, joyful and exuberant pleasure to keep the Lord’s feasts in this time so that we can get closer to Him, but just wait until the Kingdom; our practice here in this place won’t even compare. Does that mean God wants us to throw out these prophetic representations of the Kingdom to Come? How absolutely ludicrous! He wants us to celebrate with Him His way, for our own benefit, so that we can prepare for the coming of His Kingdom.

As we move on, the Christ-centered understanding of the law becomes even more clear, but we must look at the original Greek to completely understand Paul’s words here. “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,” I want to focus on the “worship of angels,” for this is a bad translation. The word “worship” is apt, but it is meant in the sense of false worship, or deference, to the commandments of men rather than the commandments of God, thinking that these “fleshly” ordinances created by men are somehow getting us closer to God’s will, when in fact they do the opposite. The word “angel” is what really needs to be studied, for the Greek word “aggelos” does not always mean angels, but here actually refers to “messengers,” or more accurately, the false messengers who were teaching the commandments of men. These are the rulers of the synagogues, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, who were puffing themselves up according to their own authority and their own rulings, which they believe trumped the very Word of God.

In this context, it is incredibly clear what Paul is saying here. As Messianic believers, as Christians, whether Jew or Greek, we must follow “the Head,” which is Jesus (Yeshua) alone. Rather than listen to these puffed up men who think they know better than God, we need to listen to God who came in the flesh, died for our sins, and rose from the dead so that we can follow Him into eternal life. Jesus is our Rabbi, God is our Rabbi, not these fools who think they know better than God. Paul is telling us not to listen to these deceivers, but to listen to God’s commandments which came from His mouth alone, especially those He gave when He walked the Earth in the body of a man. He is the “Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.” When we are saved by grace alone through faith in Jesus, we then turn to instruction by His Holy Spirit alone, and not the instruction of deceivers who say His commandments no longer matter to us. He is our nourishment. He provides our increase. He provides our instruction, and His instruction is from the Word of God.

I will jump ahead to the verses in Colossians 2:20-23, for they elucidate quite clearly what Paul has been talking about. They are the other end of the bookends as part of this inclusio, which makes sure we know what Paul is talking about. He writes, “Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men?” These regulations are defined by Paul right here in the text. They are the regulations created by men, not by God, and they are false teachings. Paul defines them: “do not touch, do not taste, do not handle.” This is a direct quote from the Talmud, from the Rabbinical writings, and has NOTHING to do with the law of God. It could not be more clear.

Finally, Paul says that those who follow after the commandments of men are deceived because these traditions “have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.” How could these traditions of the elders provide any value? They are not from God. They never were from God, and in fact, in many cases, they supersede God’s commandments in their adherents; thus, they literally deprive people of the joy they would have if they simply followed after God and God’s commandments. To be clear: God is Jesus and Jesus is God. God is ONE. He was the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never taught any other Word, and He never will. His Word is eternal. His commandments are eternal. And those who love God, will obey His commandments, for they were given for our good.

How can we as modern Christians hold to the teachings of Mathetes to Diognetus, Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho, and other ancient writings from the Catholic Church and other false teachers and their traditions that modern teachers have adopted? These are the traditions of the elders, they are NOT the commandments of God. Modern pastors are today’s Pharisees when they say that Colossians somehow suggests we are not to obey God, when He says repeatedly to remember, keep, and obey His Sabbath, and if we don’t, we are worthy of death. They are Pharisees when they say that God’s grace somehow frees us to disobey God’s commandments to keep His feasts and to keep our temples clean with clean meats. We are saved by grace so that we are washed clean in the blood of Christ, so that we are free to obey God’s commandments without the fear of death for the sins that we once committed.

But if we are found sinners while claiming to follow Christ, we will be destroyed. Paul says this quite clearly in Galatians 2:17: “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not!” We must NOT set aside the grace of God, for by grace alone we are saved. Paul writes, “for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” By this, He is NOT saying that we abandon the law, but only that the law convicts us of sin unto death, and so it is ONLY CHRIST that can save us from this condemnation. The punishment for sin is death, but thank God we have Jesus Christ who has washed us clean from our sin so that we are not condemned. That being said, once we are SAVED by His grace, we MUST become “slaves to righteousness,” which is defined by the law, or “slaves to Christ,” who is the very embodiment of the law in the flesh. We must “follow Christ,” which means to do what He did, say what He said, act how He acted, and love how He loved, and fulfill the law, just as He fulfilled the law, even unto death on the cross.

Romans 6:15-18 says, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!” Can it get more clear than this? Yes it can, because Paul continues: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” Obedience to what, exactly? Obedience to the commandments of God, of course. He continues: “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” Yes, brothers and sisters, we are slaves to righteousness, slaves to Christ, and this means that BECAUSE WE ARE SAVED BY CHRIST’S GRACE, we follow the law of God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, with every fiber and intent of our being, because by this we show we love God. If you do not do this and call yourself a Christian, you are a liar and the truth is not in you. Don’t take my word for it; read the Word of God. It is not ambiguous in any way.
 
If you would like significantly more detail on today’s verses in Colossians and a different perspective from mine that gives a similar message, please consider watching Pastor Daniel Joseph’s sermon on Colossians 2:16 from his “10 Commandments” series: <https://youtu.be/6-n3RMfIpKU>.

“If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
Colossians 2:20-23

I saved the commentary I wrote for you on Colossians 2:8-23. It covered today’s verses and can be found right here for easy reading:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kx97gdylq01djfe/20220808_Colossians2.8-23.pdf?dl=0

I love the salvation Jesus has given me through grace alone, which I will never deny, but fully embrace, and I cherish His calling for me to follow Him in a process called sanctification, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in which He asks us to also fulfill the law, not blindly on account of the letter, but on account of love for Him and each other. I want you to see the Truth of Scripture so that you can be glorified with Christ when He comes on the Last Day. I believe that day is coming soon and our time is very short to get right with the Lord. One thing is clear: Jesus said to obey His commandments if we love Him, and He said that those who do not obey them out of love for Him are “practicing lawlessness,” and when He comes, He will denounce these people who use His name but do not do what He says.

I had originally planned to show you quotations today from early church fathers, because these are the men, such as Justin Martyr, who first introduced heresies into the Gentile church and rebuilt the “wall of separation” between Jews and Gentiles that Christ had pulled down on the cross. I don’t want to even reiterate what they wrote, because I believe it to be corrupted heresy developed due to a hatred for the Jews, from whom our Messiah Jesus, whose Hebrew and given name was Yeshua, was born. It is this heresy that was passed down generation after generation and built the doctrines of today, so that most Protestant churches look more like the Catholic church they broke away from instead of like the faith that our Lord established and His Apostles built. Their words are clear, but twisted by taking them out of context and reinterpreted in order to promote a religion that gives glory to the flesh and to a life of lawlessness, because as God says in Proverbs 16:25, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”

I honestly do hope that this verse from Proverbs terrifies you, but not with worldly sorrow, but rather godly sorrow, for “our hearts are desperately wicked,” they are “deceitful above all things.” (Jeremiah 17:9). The Truth of Scripture makes it clear that we are completely wiped clean by faith in Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection and justified alone in Christ. There is no more glorious Truth than that. Why then do false teachers propose that this one act makes us into perfect beings whose future sin is irrelevant? We’re told: Once saved, we can run off and do whatever we want, even things that directly offend God’s commandments, and we’ll still make it to Heaven. Some might say, taught from the heresy of Calvin, that if we’re doing such things, we were never saved and that we’re predestined to Heaven or Hell, and if we’re saved our predestination leads us in a life of righteousness. Though there are verses taken out of context that support this theology, a more in-depth reading of the Scripture and its context makes it clear this is false teaching.

In truth, as you read in Ephesians 2:10, one of those verses conveniently cut out when heretics quote Ephesians 2:8-9, and so many other places that I’ve already shown you in the earlier days of this study of Colossians, once saved we are indeed changed individuals who have a heart to serve Christ every single day of our lives in every single way. It is incumbent on us to do this, however, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in order to “ENDURE” in our faith. Why would Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, John in so many verses tell us to “endure” in our faith and in the walk of righteousness if this was something that automatically happens without our effort? Why would James emphasize, “faith without works is dead.” Why would he use such strong language: “even the demons believe and tremble.” Faith is enough for justification, yes. It is the first step on our walk down the narrow path that is Christ, and if we are to follow Him on it, then we must obey the commandments of God, interpreted by Spirit and Truth.

Many misquote Colossians and Galatians. Rather than present my entire Galatians commentary here, I will link to my saved commentary for you to review: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lqyx58nvk2hroh9/202207_Galatians.pdf?dl=0. Both books have become the go-to for today’s heretical teachings. These beautiful writings of Paul have a different meaning than what most Christians are being taught today, and only proper hermeneutics can bring this meaning out. Sadly, most pastors today simply repeat what they’ve been taught, rather than dig into the Word and study it for themselves. They read the “commentaries,” instead of listen for the Holy Spirit of God to unveil the meaning to them as they study the historical and literary context of each verse, and then each passage, and then each book, and then the whole of the Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. When properly understood, Scripture is one message that does not contradict. There is an Old Covenant and a New Covenant, but both of them have a High Priest, a Mediator, a Temple, Sacrifices and the Law. These things are eternal. In the New Covenant, Jesus is the High Priest, the Mediator and the Sacrifice, the Temple is the Body of believers and the Law of God—the one given to Moses—is written on YOUR heart.

If there’s anything else to say about today’s verses specifically, it is to never lose sight of the fact that Paul is talking about the difference between following the commandments of God through Christ and following after the commandments  or traditions of men, the elders, who contradict Scripture with their teaching and lead men astray. We see Paul make the same warning in Titus 1:14: “not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth” and Peter in 1 Peter 1:18: “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,” This is saying exactly the same thing as today’s verse: “why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?”

Men did not command us to put God first, to not sacrifice to idols, to not use the Lord’s name in vain, to keep God’s Sabbath holy, to Honor our Father and Mother, to not murder, to not commit adultery, to not steal, to not falsely testify, and to not covet. God commanded these things to Moses, and more specifically, the Word of the Lord commanded these things. Jesus is the Word who was made flesh. These, among the others commandments from the Word of God in Scripture, are the commandments of Jesus—yes, the commandments of God! Jesus said repeatedly, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” This is subject to our free will, our desire, and our heart, for it isn’t enough for us to follow the letter of the law, and not sleep with someone of the opposite sex who is married to another, but we must also not even look at that person with lust in our hearts. Jesus told us that when we walk in the Spirit, following God’s commandments is a matter of the heart, where the law is now written. We must think, feel, fully embrace, speak and do the commandments of God.

The commandments of men—to the Jews who were under the bondage of the Pharisees and rulers of the synagogues and Sanhedrin in their day: “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”—to the Christian heretics: you don’t have to do anything other than say a prayer to make it to Heaven and you definitely can ignore the commandments of God. As I wrote yesterday, there are far more examples than these to explain the commandments of men, but I plead with you brothers and sisters to not get caught up with this heresy today and obey men, when God’s Word is so clear. God repeats Himself so many times, because He knows our heart intends to ignore Him and to develop our own way. I don’t want that for me, and I don’t want that for you. My deepest desire is to serve the Lord, Yeshua, and to do His will because I want to please Him. We are considered His bride. What bride ignores the desires of her husband, which He has explained to us over and over again? Do we know Him at all if we ignore Him? Does He know us? How can we be in relationship with Him without this desire?

I implore you, brothers and sisters: do not be deceived. The Saints who are being sanctified are enduring in their faith; they are “keeping the commandments of God AND the faith of Jesus.” (Revelation 14:12) If we are to be glorified on the Last Day, we must know the Lord, and our names must be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Scripture makes it abundantly clear that those who keep the commandments of God and faith in Jesus are the ones whose names are there. Push past the noise and deception of false teachers and strive to be with God. Many will say “Lord, Lord,” but only the few who listen to Him and hear His voice and do what He says will be rewarded their inheritance.

—

“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
Colossians 3:1-4

Colossians 3:1-4, particularly verses one and two, are repeated more clearly in Romans 6:1-4: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” To walk in the newness of life means to walk in Christ. This is the process of sanctification, rather than the process of justification. These are two different things that so many confuse and blend into one. They are not one, but two (of three) stages of the Christian walk. Both are written about here.

First, “if you have been raised up with Christ” is analogous with Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” All Christians who follow Jesus’s Gospel (and that includes me) believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and not by works. This is justification, which is also known as salvation, and there is only one way to achieve this: believe that Jesus died for your sins, and rose from the dead, conquering sin and death. There is absolutely NOTHING that we have done or can do in the future to achieve this justification. Salvation requires the blood of Jesus; nothing more and nothing less. There is nothing else needed. We MUST not boast in our works, we MUST not boast in how we keep the law of God. None of these things accomplishes salvation, and nor is it loving to present these factors as anything worthy. They are simply our duty.

Sanctification is what happens next after salvation/justification. This is what it means to “keep seeking the things above” and “set your mind on things above” in Colossians. Ephesians 2:10 says the same thing: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” As noted, Romans 6:26-31 makes it clear that we must choose not to continue in sin. Hebrews 10 is even more strong in its language, indicating that if we continue to sin, we have “trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace”. Yeshua said Himself, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments” in John 14:15, and then He continues in verses 15-16 to point out that once we are saved and resolve in our hearts to keep God’s commandments, then He will send His Holy Spirit to help us do that:

Here’s the whole section: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” Thus, if we truly have been saved and love Jesus, we will keep the commandments He gave to Moses, and if we have the heart to do this, as He said, He will send His Holy Spirit to help us do this. It must be our intent, our heart, our desire, and our love to obey the Lord like this. We must “love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.” (Matthew 22:37)

The sanctification process is serious. Jesus said Himself: “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) In Matthew 7, the Lord says those who “practice lawlessness” will not inherit Heaven. These are those who intentionally, knowingly, or rebelliously violate the law of God, or even those whose heart are far from God. Those who recoil at the very idea of obeying God; these practice lawlessness. We’ve covered this, but we ought to point this out again: 1 John 2:4 notes, “He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Thus, those who do not have the heart to obey God’s commandments and do it with every intent of their heart were either not saved to begin with or have wandered away from the Truth of their salvation. We must endure in our salvation, or it can be lost. Authentic repentance is what can bring us back into the grace of the Lord.

To reiterate, when Paul writes here in Colossians, “set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth,” he is repeating again: obey the commandments of God, and do not obey the commandments of men, when those men are adding burdens that God never intended. I’ve covered this in such great detail that I will refer you to my comments covering the previous several verses. In brief, God’s Word, whether written in Scripture, written on our hearts, or spoken by the Holy Spirit, represents the things that are above. Jesus, who came in the flesh, died, resurrected from the dead and was seen by many, and then ascended into Heaven ought to be our focus as we “set [our] mind[s] on the things above.” Jesus, who is the Word who became flesh. Who resurrected from the dead, conquering sin and death but not the “law of liberty” that God gave to Moses, for the law is an eternal Truth that we ought to obey in sanctification through Spirit and Truth.

John says it best, that those who don’t keep the commandments and think they know Jesus are liars and the Truth is not in them, but Jesus is clear that these folks will not inherit Heaven. They are luke warm, as Jesus describes the Church of Laodicea in Revelation 3, “having a form of godliness, but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:5). Obeying the law during our sanctification process blesses us greatly (read Deuteronomy 28). There is no greater blessing, nothing more freeing, nothing more joyful than obedience to God. It creates an intimate relationship with God through His Holy Spirit and I just can’t use words to describe it. You have to do it to experience it. I perceive myself getting closer with God every day, and this sanctification process lasts every single day until we die and go to sleep in the grave or until Jesus comes to collect us together in the clouds, both the dead who are raised on the Last Day and those who are alive and changed in a blink of an eye. (1 Corinth. 15).

That leads me to explaining the last part of this verse: “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” This is the last stage of our Christian walk, the one we all aspire to, and the one we hope for; namely, glorification. Everything we’ve done and everything we believe is geared toward this eventuality. There is nothing else we ought to live for. This is why Jesus told the rich man, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” In Matthew 13:44-50, Jesus gave us three parables that express the urgency of both salvation and sanctification so that we can be glorified with Him “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” This is similar to the rich man. Our heart must be to put everything here on this Earth second to God and His commandments.

Jesus continues: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” This is how serious we must be if we want to inherit Heaven. Seeking God with all of our heart must be our total focus in this life, with everything else coming after it.

Jesus continues with a final metaphor and a warning: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” We either take the mark of God as Saints, which as it says in Revelation 14:12, are those who endure in the faith of Jesus and keep the commandments of God. Or, we take the mark of the beast, which is to think, desire, embody, speak and do the “dead works” of the world or of the flesh in disobedience to God.

We have to strive after God every day, to “come to Him,” to “follow Him,” and “He will give us rest.” His “yoke is easy and His burden is light.” Faith and obedience brings the greatest joy one can have, for what greater hope is there than inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven? There is none. James 1:22-25 addresses this perfectly: “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” The “perfect law of liberty” is found in the Torah, and reiterated, clarified and expounded by Jesus Himself in the flesh, and we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit when we follow it. Let us endure until the day He comes so we can be glorified with Him.

—

“Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—”
Colossians 3:5-10

In Christ, we are called out of our life of sin, to “go and sin no more.” When we are saved by grace through faith and develop the heart to serve the Lord through obedience to His will, His Holy Spirit comes into us and begins to do a work in us, throwing off the former sins that we lived in before we were grafted-in to Israel through Christ’s blood. There is no glory in anything we might do, but—on account of our faith—the glory is God’s for putting this new Spirit in us and changing us; changing our desires to be faithful, to be obedient, but most of all, to be loving toward God and each other.

Thus, as our heart is converted, we now have the help of the Holy Spirit to put aside “anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech,” lying, “immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which amounts to idolatry” (second commandment), and the other evil practices that the law condemns to death. Our heart is changed to obey God’s law, and this is the work of God in us. While God deserves ALL of the glory, we must still make the choice to allow this change, and then take the actions to effect the change. This is why Jesus calls the “Holy Spirit” our “helper, “rather than our “controller.” It is the Holy Spirit working in us that convicts us of sin, which leads us to “die daily,” to repent for every bit of it and walk throughout life with “a humble and contrite heart,” always acknowledging that we NEED Jesus, and without Him we are dead. Without Him, there is no hope for us. We cannot reach the Kingdom of Heaven on our own.

It’s important to also recognize that with these verses, Colossians 3:5-10, Paul is teaching Torah. In Christ, we have the Holy Spirit to give us the heart to throw off what Torah condemns, and walk in a way that is not under Torah, but rather fulfills Torah. “Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language, deceit,” all of these things are violations of God’s law. “You have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created Him.” Yes, the knowledge that He gave us in His law and through His example. It doesn’t matter any longer whether we are Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, we all live in Christ or die in sin, there is no distinction except Yeshua.

Look at the parable of the servants in Luke 17:5-10, and consider the question Yeshua is answering while reading this: “And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”

We do not look for any glory for doing what the Lord commands us; this is not its purpose. When we completely fulfill the Lord’s commandments, because we love our Master and want to serve Him with all joy, we must say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.” This is why we keep the commandments of God. While it may be our duty, we do it because we love our Master and want to please Him. He is more pleased, however, that we have faith in Him and put our complete and total trust in Him. Doing our duty is simply expected; it is what a faithful servant must strive to do. Not doing our duty is the fastest way to be cast out, but in total and truthful repentance, He will welcome us back. Here is the same Truth communicated a different way in Luke 18:9-14:

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

We don’t achieve anything by doing the works of the law, and we certainly should not use our obedience to look down on those who disobey, but rather consider our humble, obedient walk with the Lord as a calling to bring others to repentance, so they too might walk in righteousness if God convicts them and calls them to walk away from their sin. We ourselves have never perfectly followed the law; it is impossible. We are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God. Thank God for the glory that is Christs, that while we were yet sinners, He died for us. He saved us. He brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

We obey God’s commandments not out of some obligation or to lord ourselves over those who don’t obey the commandments, but we obey God’s commandments because we love Him, we want to please Him, and we want to do what He expects from us, always. Why wouldn’t we want to do what He has asked of us? While obeying God’s commandments in all faith in Jesus, we must say, “have mercy on me, a sinner.” We must look to Him alone as our salvation and count on Him to help us become more like Him every day. It is a daily process, a walk, but the change in our heart comes suddenly. As the Holy Spirit convicts us every day about our stumbling and our strivings, it is up to us to grow in our discernment to listen to Him, and then to actually make the choice to listen and do the good works He has called us to do. Praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ who has saved us from our sins!

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“a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”
Colossians 3:11

In Isaiah 56:1, we read: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Keep justice, and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed.” Isaiah is prophesizing about the first coming of Jesus, and salvation indeed comes through Him alone. In fact the words in this verse, “my salvation” are translated from the Hebrew, Yeshuati (יְשֽׁוּעָתִי֙), which means “My Yeshua.” The root is Yeshua (יְשׁוּעָה). The verse says, “my Yeshua is about to come.” The chapter has an important message for both Jews and Gentiles grafted into the faith through the Messiah, but this is a topic for another day. I wanted to point out the parallel to Colossians 3:11 in Isaiah 56:3, where we read: “Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, ‘The Lord has utterly separated me from His people’.” This is written in warning to Gentiles who would come to accept Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah. God says: Don’t let these Gentiles say that the Lord has separated me from His people,” the Jews.

Here’s the truth of Isaiah 56, which is reiterated in Colossians 3:11: There are not multiple dispensations. There are not separate paths for Jews and Gentiles. Replacement theology and dual covenant theology are heresies. Jews and Gentiles, circumcised or uncircumcised (physically), civilized or uncivilized, slave or free, no matter who you are, your salvation comes from one place alone: Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMashiach). We read the same message in Acts 4:12: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” The message is reiterated beautifully in Galatians 3:26-29: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Consider Jeremiah 16:19-21 as another witness: “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, My refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come to You From the ends of the earth and say, ‘Surely our fathers have inherited lies, worthlessness and unprofitable things. Will a man make gods for himself, Which are not gods? Therefore behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know My hand and My might; And they shall know that My name is the Lord.” Jeremiah prophesied that the Messiah would be the unifier of all believers; this Truth is taught all throughout the Bible. Jesus is the only solution for both Jew and Gentile alike, and it is our role as believers to reach as many for Christ as we are capable of reaching, and let the Lord do the rest. In Isaiah 49:6, we read, “Indeed [God] says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’” Jesus came to save both Gentile and Jew alike.

Jeremiah 16 has its parallel in Romans 10 and 11. Without getting too deep in the weeds, Romans 10:11-13 says, “For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’.” Jesus Himself said to the Pharisees who asked for a sign, they will receive the sign of Jonah, and proceeds: “You will not see me again until you say blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Matthew 23:39) In other words, the salvation of Christ will come when Jews call out to Jesus as their Messiah. As we read earlier in Jeremiah 16, it is our duty as fishers and hunters to help them get there. Paul makes the same point in Romans 10:14-15: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!”

And now we can explore the full-picture of how Gentiles are grafted in to spiritual Israel, and how Jews of the flesh must also be grafted back into spiritual Israel, for there is only one Christ and one salvation. In Colossians 3:9-11, Paul articulates this best: “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” The Old man with his deeds is the sinner, who must repent. The new man renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him is the person who has faith in the Messiah Yeshua and keeps the commandments of God. Those who do this are not two people, but one people in Christ, one Israel.

And so Paul, starting in Romans 11:11, essentially explains how Jeremiah 16 is going to play out and how we ought to humbly perceive our grafted-in position among the people of promise: “For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” Paul is saying that our faith in the Messiah Yeshua, and our adherence to the law of God, ought to provoke the people to whom the law was given to jealousy, which may in fact open their eyes to their Messiah and save them from death.

He continues, speaking of Jesus as the “Firstfruits” and the “root” and the Church as the “lump” and the “branches.” Starting at Romans 11:16: “For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.”

The reference to the olive tree here comes from Jeremiah 11:15-17, in which God describes the “green olive tree” as rebellious, which results in branches being burned and broken off. It is the grace of God alone that saves us, so that none of us can boast. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Jesus alone is our salvation and He is the root that supports the tree of spiritual Israel, which we have been grafted into. If we do not walk in righteousness, but instead fall into sin and disbelief, we too can be cut off of the tree of life, just as the Jews were for their disbelief. Only faith and obedience keeps us tied to the root, and so let us fear God so that we can continue to receive nutrition from the root. Both Jew and Gentile are saved by grace and grow with Christ through obedience by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Paul continues in verse 23: “And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?” And so as we read in Isaiah 11, “He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” His goal is to save everyone who calls on His name. Those Jews who are waiting for their Messiah, the second coming of our Jewish Messiah, are positioned to accept Him, and as we read in Jeremiah 16, it is part of our role to hunt and fish for this remnant and lead them to Yeshua. This ought to be our heart, as Paul so eloquently writes in his parable.

And so, when we read in Isaiah 43:1, “But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine,” we know that God is speaking about His chosen people, Jew and Gentile, who belong to Him. In John 10:7-18, 25-27, Jesus essentially repeats this same truth: “Most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. … If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture,” he says. “I am the good shepherd; and I know my sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. … My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” Jesus makes clear that there is one flock and one shepherd, not two, and there is only one way to be saved, and that is through faith in the Messiah Yeshua.

While the entire section would require a much larger discussion, Ephesians 2:14 says that Christ “tore down the middle wall of separation” between Jew and Gentile. Rather than separate Jew and Gentile, as the Jews had interpreted the law, the law instead separates believers from unbelievers, and all believers are united in Christ. It is a terrible shame that many on both sides have worked overtime to rebuild the middle wall of separation, which was a literal wall in the Temple that prevented Gentiles from worshipping alongside Jews. This wall crumbled when Jesus rose from the dead. The devil has attempted to rebuild it. Paul is doing the work of the Holy Spirit by trying to encourage brotherhood and fellowship among the two, for this is what Christ came to do. And then He asked us to gather unbelievers and bring them into the faith.

As we’ve discussed glorification in previous verses, I think it’s important to point out a prophesy that speaks to the glorification of both Jews and Gentiles in Christ. We find that the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God, is available to all, Jew and Greek, who trust in the Messiah Jesus and keep His commandments: Consider Ezekiel 47:21-23: “Thus you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the strangers who dwell among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance,” says the Lord God. Praise God Almighty that He has prepared a place for all who call upon His name, regardless of their background.

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“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
Colossians 3:12-14

When we obey God’s commandments and follow Yeshua in faith, we become the “elect of God, holy and beloved,” and then we ought to reflect the positive calling of God’s law in our lives: “tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection,” the “bond of unity.” It ought to be our heart to unite one another with Christ, encouraging one another toward righteousness rather than accusing one another of sin. Rather than accuse, it is our duty to exhort, to encourage, to instruct in righteousness, and to call each other to walk more closely with the Lord Jesus.

Yeshua said He gave us a new commandment, to “love one another as I loved you.” To follow Him. To do as He did. To embody the law in our lives as He did to treat one another with love, compassion and patience as we strive toward God together. He said others would know that we are His disciples if we have love for one another. This doesn’t mean that we allow people to do whatever they want; however, for it is imperative as Christians that we encourage our brothers and sisters to live a Godly life and call attention to the sins of those who are walking astray. Matthew 18:15-17 and 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 highlight these principles. But we are also to encourage one another toward obedience to God, toward faith in Christ, for the world and the flesh can certainly pull folks away. Our job is to pull our brothers and sisters out of the fire (Jude), to make sure they endure in their faith, and to treat each other as we want to be treated, with total hospitality and a willing joyful heart to serve each other’s needs that align with God’s will.

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“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”
Colossians 3:15-17

When we put on love, the perfect bond of unity and perfection, the peace of Christ comes to rule in our hearts. It is peace in knowing that our heart is pursuing God, and peace in knowing that no circumstance in this life whatsoever can tear us away from the love of God. This is peace, yes, but also wholeness, and the Hebrew word “shalom” represents both of these concepts. We are made whole by Christ through His love and consequently love Him and each other, and then we receive a sense of wholeness, which gives “peace beyond understanding,” as Paul wrote. This ought to be our state of mind as believing Christians. If we waiver from this state of mind, then we need to get down on our knees and repent, for something is not right between us and God and it is an imperative that we focus on our number one relationship before focusing on anything else. God must be first.

Next, Paul exhorts us to let the word of Christ dwell within us, and this is the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation that God asks us to meditate on day and night. We ought to bear it in our thoughts, words and actions, and we ought to spend time in it every day. Devotionals are nice, but I’m talking about the whole counsel of God, starting on page one of the Bible in Genesis and making it through to Revelation, not just once, but every day of our lives from now until Jesus comes to bring us home. How many times will God speak through the Word into our lives? How many times will we read the Word of God without missing a day? That’s the answer. Why would we not want to build our relationship with the Creator of Heaven and Earth and everything in them? We do this by reading the Word of God.

By reading the Word, we also develop wisdom that gives us the ability to teach and admonish, which means to educate, correct and advise one another. It’s not just sermons and written commentary that we write to one another here, but it’s as the writer of Hebrews wrote in 10:24-25: “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” Here in Colossians, Paul says we ought to get together to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (worship music), and singing not out of obligation, but with thankfulness in our hearts to God. We come together to worship God before anything else, and we must do this with clean hands and a pure heart, so that we do not find ourselves practicing syncretism or worshipping idols. (Psalm 24:4) This is our time in the throne room with Yahweh, who is Yeshua, one in being, and “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12) Our hearts must be humble, contrite and willing to come together with the One True God in gratitude, praise and worship of who He is and what He has done for us.

Equally important, Paul writes, “Whatever [we] do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” This means we really do need to be attentive to our words and our deeds, to make sure that we are in fact loving God through them by saying and doing what He has asked us to say and do. If we do something sinful in the name of the Lord, that is a violation of the third commandment; it’s blasphemy. If we do something sinful or call evil good or good evil by the name of the Holy Spirit, we blaspheme the Holy Spirit and are worthy of death. When we say and do anything in the name of Jesus, and Paul says to say and do everything this way, we must say and do the things that please Him, which He has commanded us, so that we are truly following our Lord and the example He set for us, with the help of His Holy Spirit.

In Deuteronomy 6:25, we read, “It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as He commanded us.” Just to be clear, this is the verse where the Word of God itself defines the word “righteousness.” When we pursue righteousness, and even become a slave to righteousness, as Paul wrote in Romans, we can be thankful for every word and action in our lives, because we can be assured it is from God. And gratitude for what He has given us; first His Truth, and then Salvation through the embodiment of His Truth in the Man Jesus, who is God in the flesh.

God created everything in the Heavens and the Earth, and He created the Heavens and the Earth themselves. There is nothing you say or do that you can take credit for yourself. God even gave you the time and the talents to learn how to say and do everything you say and do. How can we be anything but grateful, for this God who created everything wants us to have a portion in His creation with Him forever, if only we will trust in Him and obey His commands. Yes, in Jesus Christ is everything we will ever need. He is the source and destination of life and there is no life outside of Him.

“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.” Colossians 3:18-21

The fifth commandment in Exodus 20:12 is “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.” These are the people whom God chose for us to be brought into this world and raised up according to His purposes. Whether or not they do their job the way God designed is irrelevant; we owe them complete and total honor, for God has used them to give us an opportunity to be saved through Jesus Christ and dwell forever with Him. So yes, obeying God’s commandment is indeed “well pleasing to the Lord.” However, if parents cause their child to disobey God, then we know from Peter in Acts 5:29, the child “ought to obey God rather than man.” This does not excuse us from giving them honor, but simply gives us an understanding of the proper order. God always comes first. There is no other God outside of Him, the creator of the Heaven and the Earth and everything in them.

In Genesis 1:27, we read: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” And in Genesis 2:23-24, we learn that God has made man and wife to be “one flesh,” echad in Hebrew, and so Mother and Father are one flesh according to the way God created them. And here also we learn, because a man and woman come together as one flesh, “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Jesus repeats this truth in Mark 10, concluding with “Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.” And so, when a man leaves his father and mother to become one flesh with his wife, a new family is born with the husband as its head. He and she both owe honor to their mothers and fathers—not as long as the parents live, but as long as the newly wed couple lives; even beyond their deaths our parents should be held up with honor.

In Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul makes the same point from Colossians 3:18-21, but far more clearly: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.” He continues: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

The mystery of a man and woman becoming one flesh is similar to Christ and His sacred assembly, His bride, becoming one, as we see Him pray to the Father in John 17:20-23: “I do not pray for these [apostles] alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” In Christ, we become one with His body, which is a spiritual body. Our engagement is already in place, for His death and resurrection set up the opportunity to say “Yes” to His marriage proposal. When we take the cup on Passover, we establish our agreement to the New Covenant with Him. When He comes again, He will bring His bride, those who believe in Him and do as He commanded, home to His Father’s house, where He has prepared a place for us.

If you think about the relationship that Jesus has with His followers, this is how a husband ought to behave toward His wife. He should be self sacrificing, all loving, a provider, but also willing to instruct and lead her in righteousness. When she is disrespectful or disobedient, he should be kind and patient, loving her all the more. If she rebels, yes, he should rebuke her, but with love, with the hope to bring her back. He should be willing to do anything at all for her and the family they have built together, to sacrifice everything to her, even his own life, to build her up into her best possible self. A wife therefore ought to be like the church toward Christ. She ought to obey him, when he is aligned with God’s will; she ought to encourage him with praise and gratitude, she ought to love Him with eagerness and want to be with him. She ought to serve his needs, just as he is serving her needs. She ought to put him first in her life. She ought to keep herself pure for him, and live righteously as an example to the other women. When a man and wife live this way, their relationship will get better and better each and every day. Likewise, when we live this way toward Christ, our relationship with Him will improve day-by-day. Unlike the earthly marriage, our marriage with Christ is eternal, and so this relationship will get better by the day into eternity. What a wondrous thought.

When it comes to children, it is imperative that Fathers are not too harsh with their children, but long-suffering, patient, full of lovingkindness and eager to be with them. This is the picture of our loving Heavenly Father toward us. He even came in the flesh to die for us, as an earthly father ought to be willing to sacrifice everything for his children. He chastens us, he rebukes us, he even judges us when we do wrong, but his goal is not to destroy us, but to raise us up into the people He desires us to be—our best possible selves. Paul says the same for earthly fathers: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.” A father must “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) And yes, if you “spare the rod, you spoil the child.” (Proverbs 13:24). We do not rebuke or punish children out of enjoyment, but out of a sincere, thoughtful and prayerful hope that they turn away from the flesh and the world and wickedness and instead take on righteousness and accept our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and salvation unto eternal life.

We must be like Job, as we read in Job 1:4-5: ”And his sons would go and feast in their houses, each on his appointed day, and would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did regularly.” We read in Revelation 8:4 that the incense burned is the “prayers of the saints” that ascend to the throne of God. Yes, we ought to “pray without ceasing” for our children, that God Himself will intercede for them and open their eyes to His Truth, even as they are walking down a road we do not like. Prayer ought to be the first step, so that we do not turn to nagging, and thus “exasperate them.”

We must also know that our efforts to raise them properly according to the Word of God is our only responsibility, and we ought to do it or we ourselves are to blame. If we have not done this, the sin is on our heads, but if we have done this and they turn from this path, then they are the ones who will have to answer to God and we ourselves will be saved. Patience and prayer for them is needed as long as we live, for our Father in Heaven is long-suffering and His lovingkindness and mercy endures forever. Ezekiel 18 and 33 should be read in their fullness, for there we find the Gospel, but in Ezekiel 18:4, 20-21: we read, “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die. … The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.”

And so, in Christ, we all have been given the opportunity to say “yes” to His free gift of salvation through His blood on the cross. We all need this gift or we will be destroyed. There is not a single man or woman without sin, for we all fall short of the glory of God. When we say yes, we are betrothed to the King, and we must then prepare our wedding gown, which is white and pure. We must walk in the righteousness of God, our Father, and rejoice in His chastening, for the Lord loves the one He chastens as a father loves a son. And His chastening will never be more than we can handle, for our Father does not want to exasperate us, but He does want to lead us to repentance. We must not be like the foolish virgins, without enough oil in our lamps, for the Holy Spirit is our helper and we must be prepared to endure all things for Christ. But we also must be ready at all hours of the night, every day until He comes.

Our Father and His Son, Our Betrothed, are one, just like our Father and Mother are one, and a man and a wife are one. We must not think about this in human terms, for that can get confusing. Isaiah 9:6 shows us a window into these metaphors when the prophet announces the coming of our Messiah Yeshua: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” He is both Father and Prince of Peace, and so both metaphors work to explain our relationship to Him. We are His children whom He chastens because He loves us and wants us to reach our full potential. We are His bride for whom He sacrificed Himself so that we might live with Him forever, if we will chasten ourselves and desire Him with all of our hearts. When we fill both of these roles with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, we become one with Him.

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“Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.”
Colossians 3:22-25

“Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.”
Colossians 4:1

Like fathers and husbands and wives, bondservants and masters are metaphors for our relationship with God. Until we are made sons upon our resurrection from the dead or our rapture, whichever comes first, we are bondservants of the most High God, slaves to righteousness, as Paul wrote. But Paul is also writing about our human relationships, that we serve God in everything we do, rather than our own interests. We must always put God first, whether we are working for someone else or whether we are hiring someone else to work for us, yes, treating them as we would want to be treated, but better than that, treating them as God has instructed us to treat them, with love and sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Of course this means that if an employer asks you do do something that violate’s God’s will, it is not only right, but mandatory to use the opportunity to testify about our faith and decline to do what was asked. Whenever we see the words “fearing the Lord,” it means to be obedient to Him in all circumstances. So we work heartily for our employer up and until he or she asks us to do something that is opposed to God’s commandments, then we must serve the Lord and do His will first.

By writing these two metaphors in Colossians, Paul also brings to light the parables of our Lord Jesus Christ, who used the master and servant juxtaposition multiple times in His teaching.

We covered this earlier in this study, but look again at Luke 17:5-10: “…And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” Like the humble servants Jesus describes, we ought to do what we have been commanded to do by God, not expecting anything for it, for our salvation is through Christ alone. Our service to Christ, whether as employer or employee in the flesh, ought to be done with “sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.” Paul says: “For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality” AND “Masters” ought to be behave “knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.”

Here’s another critical one from Matthew 24:45-51: “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The wise servant is preparing food for the master that he or she knows the master is coming to collect in due season. In other words, he or she is bearing fruit for the Lord, doing the work that the Lord has asked him or her to do. We find those instructions in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, and the Lord is not slack in reminding us concerning His will for us. The evil servant, however, violates God’s commandments or claims they have been done away with, and is thus thrown out with the hypocrites on judgment day.

The parable of the talents is another in Matthew 25:14-30, where only the servants who took what the master gave them and produced multiples of it were rewarded, but the servant who sat back and buried the gifts of the master and did not do anything with it had his gifts taken away from him and given to the one who had the most. So it will be on Judgment Day. Those who do the work that God has asked of us will be rewarded with abundance, but those who do not do the work will have what little grace and mercy was afforded to them taken away and given to the ones with abundance. The Lord says in Luke 12:48, “or everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” How much more could we be given than grace through faith and salvation for our souls? There is no greater gift that is even conceivable. When we receive this free gift, what do we do with it? If we bury it in the ground and do nothing, we can expect that it will be taken away and given to the one who had taken this gift and joyfully served the Lord and done all He has commanded.

In the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35, the Lord shows us that when we are forgiven of our sins through His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead; when we receive this free gift that is greater than any other gift we could receive, if we then go out and treat others harshly, similarly to the servant in Matthew 24, we will be punished even more harshly than before. Hebrews 10:26-31 also makes this clear. In Matthew 18, this servant, who had been forgiven of an insurmountable debt, which is symbolic for the sins that we have committed and cannot atone for without Christ, but upon receiving this forgiveness, he went out and choked one of his fellow servants, demanding that he pay off his debt. For this, the master recaptures the forgiven servant and throws him back in prison and tortures him. If we do not treat others with lovingkindness and forgive them their sins against us, how can we imagine the Lord will forgive us? He won’t; He will throw us into Hell, instead. Luke 6:37: “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Matthew 5:23-24: “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” Before we can approach God’s altar in Heaven, we must treat one another with the love and forgiveness that the Lord commanded us.

In Paul’s metaphor, yes he is asking us to treat our employers and employees in a way that reflects our relationship with Christ, but he is also pointing us back to all of the lessons that the Lord taught us through His master-servant parables. The Bible is so interrelated and intertwined, it’s amazing. I love it and it fills me with great joy to see what the Lord is saying to us here, for it is an inspiration on how we ought to act every minute of every day, no matter where we are. Our relationship with God always must come first; He does not fit into a box that we enter once a week, as Solomon made quite clear when He was building the Temple to the Lord in 2 Chronicles 6:18: “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!” “Yes,” to answer the rhetorical question, God indeed will dwell with men on the earth, but “no,” He won’t be contained by any building or any practice of man. We owe Him every part of ourselves and every part of our lives, and we ought to be serving Him in everything we do.

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 “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;”
Colossians 4:2

Prayer must be a part of our lives if we desire to have a relationship with God. God has commanded us to put Him first in our lives, and how can we do that if we do not spend time with Him, both by reading His Word, but also praying to Him, having a time of devotion and conversation with Him, our Father, our King, through the name of Yeshua, “keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.” It may be easy for our mind to wander, but we must not allow this.

In Luke 11:1-13, the apostles ask Jesus how to pray, and this is His response:

“Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’ So He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ And He said to them, ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!’”

We see many examples of prayer in Scripture, such as in Psalm 51, when King David prayed for repentance in one of the most beautiful and humbling prayers of all Scripture, and in 2 Chronicles 20, when King Jehoshaphat prayed to God to deliver Judah from the armies of Moab, Ammon and the Meunites, or in Isaiah 36 and 37, when King Hezekiah and Isaiah prayed to God to deliver Judah from General Sennacherib from Assyria. These are just three examples of many. Perhaps the best prayer recorded in Scripture is when our Lord Yeshua prayed for us to the Father in John 17. Read the whole chapter, but this excerpt is the Lord praying for you and me: “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” In Yeshua alone do I trust, for in Him alone we have been invited into His Kingdom to be one with God.

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“praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.”
Colossians 4:3-4

When we pray, we ought to pray for our pastors, our teachers, our elders, and our overseers in the church, as well as everyone who helps administrate the services, who make it so we can come together in fellowship to praise and worship the Lord each week, and to learn more about Him. Our spiritual leaders are under constant attack from the enemy, and they need us to pray for them to keep them focused on Jesus and the work He has called them to do. Whenever we might feel tempted to complain about something we don’t care for at church—so long as it is preferential—, rather than complain we ought to praise God and pray for our leaders. I can’t emphasize enough how difficult it is to spiritually lead a congregation, to check yourself to make sure you are being obedient, to fully rely on Christ and to help direct people who are struggling back to Christ. With Christ, all things are possible; so prayer is essential, like food and water. Without it, the enemy can get a foothold and destroy a church. With prayer and a pure faith, the enemy has no chance.

We have it easy in America; no one I am aware of has gone to prison for preaching the Word of God—yet. While this may change, as it has in Canada to our north, right now we should offer praise to God for the good life He has afforded us. We don’t deserve it. What do we do with it? “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Consider Pastor Artur Pawlowski of Calvary and the several other pastors who have stood up against unlawful orders from the government to not preach on account of Covid. We must always obey God and not man, as they have, despite what punishment may result. In Canada, of all places, this man of God was arrested and tortured for doing the will of God. Consider the story of Brother Yun of “the Heavenly Man” in China, who spent years in prison because he preached the Word of God, or Pastor Richard Wurmbrand of “Tortured for Christ,” who defied orders not to preach the Gospel during the Soviet takeover of Romania and was imprisoned and tortured for 14 years because of it.

These men had Peter and Paul and others to look up to in the Scripture, even the Prophet Jeremiah who was hung in a cage for passers by to spit on due to His preaching. There are so many stories of persecution, but as Paul writes here, pray for these men and women that God will open a door for them to share the Word even amidst this imprisonment and torture, and that the Holy Spirit will “make it clear in the way [they] ought to speak.” There are people imprisoned and tortured and killed in Southeast Asia, in Muslim nations of the Middle East, in many parts of Africa, also. They need our prayers so that God will give them the words they need to share the Gospel. One day, perhaps, you and me will have the opportunity to spend time in prison on account of our faith. If that day ever comes, pray that the Holy Spirit gives you every opportunity to share the peace that Christ brings, the promise of everlasting life, which is worth any conceivable inconvenience, torture or even gruesome death to achieve.

As we pray for these people, however, pray like Paul instructs in Colossians 4:3-4, that God would give them the Word to speak to spread the Gospel, not that their situation would change. Jesus said in Luke 17:33: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” We need to give everything we have to Christ, and for those giving more than us, pray for their encouragement and for God to use them for His kingdom. Pray that God will use you and me for the same thing.

In his book, “The Heavenly Man,” Brother Yun explains things this way on page 277:

"Once I spoke in the West and a Christian told me, 'I've been praying for years that the Communist government in China will collapse, so Christians can live in freedom.' This is not what we pray! We never pray against our government or call down curses on them. Instead, we have learned that God is in control of both our lives and the government we live under. Isaiah 9:6 prophesied about Jesus, 'The government will be on his shoulders.' God has used China's government for his own purposes, moulding and shaping his children as He sees fit. Instead of focusing our prayers against any political system, we pray that regardless of what happens to us, we will be pleasing to God. Don't pray for persecution to stop! We shouldn't pray for a lighter load to carry, but a stronger back to endure! Then the world will see that God is with us, empowering us to live in a way that reflects his love and power. That is true freedom!"

And so when we pray for God’s kingdom and God’s Saints, please join me in praying for their endurance in the faith, their strength to carry out His purpose for them, and His Words to flow through them so that they are serving Him alone in their every thought, word and action. Pray the same for me and for yourselves, in the name of Jesus.

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“Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”
Colossians 4:5-6

Colossians 4:5-6 is a Word from God to me today, and I praise Him for it. I’m in the midst of dealing with outsiders on every side, and it is all God’s doing, and it is all good. I pray He uses it all for good, just like He promised He would: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28) The opportunity is supernaturally amazing right now to truly go out and do the work that God has called me to do, but I don’t want it to be me doing it, but the Holy Spirit in me. It’s imperative to speak the Truth, but gently, with love. To be wise, according to the counsel of God, bringing forth only what the Holy Spirit puts on our tongue to say or in our typing hands. I really appreciate the citations for Proverbs 15:1 and Proverbs 18:21, for I agree that they completely apply here.

While Jesus speaks about the occasion of being arrested in Mark 13:11, I think the principle applies in more situations than simply being dragged before the magistrate. This verse also applies to any circumstance where we are faced with “outsiders” and God wants us to use the interaction to glorify His name: “But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” We ought not worry about being prepared for every possible encounter; we ought to read the Word of God daily and depend on Him to use what is needed when the time comes. “Greater is Him who is in me, then he who is in the world.” Whether this verse applies to me aspiring to be in the world, but not of the world through Christ, or whether it refers to the enemy who is in the world, the point is the same. God, who dwells within the body of believers, is greater.

The word outside here is “exo,” and it means “outside.” It’s often used in Scripture to those who were standing outside a building, so in that context it could mean those who do not belong to your particular church, even though they are also Christians who belong to another church. The word is also used in the context of those who are cast out, as in those who have either not received salvation through Christ or those who have fallen away from the Truth and need to repent. Paul really speaks to both instances in 2 Timothy 2:23-26: “But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” This isn’t to say we should not discuss Scripture and what it means, but that we should approach these differences with gentleness for the purpose of teaching and correcting inconsistencies of understanding.

Jude 1:20-23 really gets to the bottom of this teaching, also: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” These verses don’t contradict Paul, but expand on their meaning and illustrate the discernment we must have within the Holy Spirit when we are interacting with those who need to be built up in the faith. On all we must be gentle and approach them with love, but some need to softer touch all the way through, the patient, long-term investment in their faith, bearing with them as they stumble from time to time. On others who are heading off a cliff, we need to warn them about their walk away from God and put the fear of God back into them, for only when we are obedient to God can we say that we love Him and belong to His Body. Some folks need a wake-up call to this truth, or they could fall away forever.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul brings the most important aspect to this idea, particularly with verses 1-8: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” We must teach the Truth in love.

Jesus gave us a new commandment, “to love one another as He loved us.” Before He walked in the flesh, we didn’t have His example, but now that He has lived as a man, we can do what He did and follow His example of love in every way. Jesus did not give the same love to the Pharisees that He did to His disciples, but remember that He told Peter, “Get behind me Satan,” and He also said gently to Paul, who was a pharisee, “Why are you persecuting me, Saul?” He used both men mightily for His purposes and spoke to them in different ways as needed to get them on the right path for their own sanctification but also so that they might lead others to the Kingdom of God. Ultimately, our relationship is one-on-one with God through Christ, and all who truly believe have the benefit of this relationship.

When we talk with outsiders or even each other, we must do so as if using salt to season food or to fertilize the land. If there’s not enough salt, the food will be tasteless or the seeds you plant in the ground may not grow, but if you use too much salt, the food will be inedible and the ground will become fallow. We need to use the right amount of salt at all times to produce delicious bread to eat, which is the Word of God, and fertile soil on which the Lord can shine His sun and water with His rain to bring forth a healthy crop that will bear fruit for His Kingdom, and that fruit is the works He prepared beforehand so we should walk in them as well as the faith in our Savior Jesus, without whom we are lost—an outsider, in fact, who needs to be brought inside the camp.

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“As to all my affairs, Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond-servant in the Lord, will bring you information. For I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts; and with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number. They will inform you about the whole situation here.” Colossians 4:7-9

There is no better joy in the world than to be knit together with brothers and sisters in Christ, just like David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 18:1: “Now when David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” I have experienced this with a few of my brothers in the church; it feels like I have known each of them for all eternity, even though I’ve only known them for a few years. Jesus experienced this, too. In Matthew 12:49, after being told that his biological mother and brothers were looking for Him, “He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers!’” A true brother or sister in the Lord, where there is true unity, is better than any possible familial relationship, and that by no means discounts the love of family. In Psalm 133:1, we read: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” This is what he’s talking about.

In Colossians 4:7-9, Paul is sending brothers like this to the Colossians. He trusts these men not only with his life, but also with an accurate representation of the Truth that He is sharing by bringing His letter to them and teaching them the details and interpretations. It’s hard to imagine the situation, because we can just call someone on the phone or zoom with someone anywhere in the world, and we can livestream a sermon from halfway across the country or even around the world to our local congregations. However, this letter was Paul’s livestream sermon, and rather than the Internet, he sent his letter with Tychicus and Onesimus, whom he also writes about in the book of Philemon. Maybe one of them even read the letter to the waiting congregation, who were eager to hear the next message from one of the world’s most prominent teachers of the Truth. I know I can barely wait one week for the next livestream message from our lead pastor, and oh how my heart sinks when he takes a week off. I can’t imagine waiting for and then hearing a message from Paul.

Tychicus and Onesimus were instructed to also discuss Paul’s “circumstances” and “the whole situation here.” These critical details about the status of the growing church as well as Paul’s personal circumstances were meant to “encourage your hearts.” I know that discussing the issues of the church with my overseer are encouraging to both of us. We both face the same struggles, and we both have unique experiences to share and strengthen each other in the faith. We share the accomplishments of the Lord’s work in our lives and encourage one another with these stories. All of the challenges of life and the pastoral calling are converted to joy when we do this. And while the congregation in Colossi hoped to see Paul in the flesh, they were most likely elated to hear his direct words written to them for their upbuilding, and they were encouraged by Paul’s brothers who were of the same Body, able to bring the same encouragement and joy from the larger Church ministry as Paul would have brought himself. Their visit most definitely built up this early church, and maybe even brought new members into the congregation.  

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“Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings; and also Barnabas’s cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him); and also Jesus who is called Justus; these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me.”
Colossians 4:10-11

For the record, despite what some might say, Colossians 4:10-11 has nothing to do with Job nor about his friends and the bad advice they gave, or their silence. It’s not even a good parallel passage; that’s a different message for a different subject. God instructs us in Hebrews 10:24-25 to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,” which means to encourage one another to obey the commandments of God. The writer expounds on this by saying we ought to be “exhorting one another,” especially as we see the Last Day approaching, which it now is. This means that we ought to be STRONGLY urging one another to be faithful to Christ and obedient to God. To not do so, I believe, is sin. The idea of staying silent may be apt for when a brother or sister is mourning and needs comfort, but when it comes to studying the Word, silence is wrong. I pointed out how in Jude we are instructed to “save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” The flesh represents our desire to sin and violate God’s commandments. We cannot sit by and tolerate Christians as they do this, and less so if they teach in this way.

In fact, Paul explains emphatically in 1 Corinthians 5 that we ought to judge our brothers and sisters in the Church who are sinning, and in fact, if they refuse to turn from their sin, which is violation of God’s commandments, that we ought to throw them out of the Church. It is people on the outside of the Church that we ought not judge. Paul says, “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.” Does this sound like we should keep silent? Jesus called the Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, because they taught that their own tradition (the commandments of men) was of greater value than the commandments of God (Mark 7:8). Today, based on a Catholic Church tradition going back to the very early days, many Christians act just like the Pharisees and elevate their own tradition above the commandments of God. It is imperative that we call such Christians out as hypocrites, to protect the true flock of Christ, yes, but also with the hope of bringing these deceived or errant ones to repentance.

Now, the verses in question for today; namely, Colossians 4:10-11, refer to Jews from the Circumcision Party who followed Jesus and also worked alongside Paul in the ministry. This is a huge thing, since many of Paul’s writings are in opposition to the Circumcision Party, which taught that Gentile adults must be circumcised in the flesh to be saved, which is a false teaching. We know from Galatians that circumcision is a matter of the Holy Spirit cutting sin out of our hearts, something that happens upon faith in Christ for salvation and obedience to God’s commandments, as Jesus explains in John 14. Paul calls this in several places the “circumcision made without hands.” It is prophesied in Jeremiah 31:33 and exhorted in the law of God in Deuteronomy 10:16, “Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.” This has both an immediate and a prophetic meaning.

In any case, considering the infighting between the early Messianic Jews who properly taught the Gospel, Paul and Peter included, and the Messianic Jews of the Circumcision Party who did not, as we read about in Acts 15 and Galatians, Paul’s statement here is a major endorsement of Aristarchus, Mark and Justus as Paul writes to His Gentile brothers in Colossi. “These are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision,” Paul writes, which refers to this “Circumcision Party,” an errant sect of early Christians. Clearly Paul is not referring to all Messianic Jews here, because He Himself is a Messianic Jew, as is Peter, James, Matthew and the other 9 apostles, plus all of the early Jewish believers of Jesus who made up the bulk of the early Church. Every single one of the 3000 who received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Acts 2 were Jews, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” Gentiles only came into the faith later on, and they were the minority for a significant length of time.

Without question, there were more than these “fellow workers” who were Jewish, but these were converts from the Circumcision Party, perhaps to whom Paul had taught the Word of God more accurately. It’s relevant then that he mentions them here, because he is indicating they may show up in Colossi, and that they ought to be welcomed as brothers rather than adversaries. “They have proved to be an encouragement to me,” Paul writes. In other words, they are bearing fruit for the Kingdom of God and doing the work that Christ has called all of us to do. They have joined the effort to teach the Torah to Gentiles who knew Jesus and the Messiah to Natural Jews who already knew the Torah and the “whole counsel of God” to the Pagans who knew neither. This is the same mission we have today, except that Gentiles who know Jesus are now called Christians. As we read in Romans 11, it is imperative that we understand the faith as one faith for both Jews and Gentiles, where the “middle wall of separation” has been torn down (Ephesians 2), and that there is only one name by which anyone can be saved, whether they are Jew or Gentile, and that is the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12). There are not two paths, but one path, and it is the narrow path of Jesus Christ.

And so, like Aristarchus, Mark and Justus, we ought to become “fellow workers for the kingdom of God,” providing both exhortation and encouragement to one another, regardless of whether we are Jew or Greek. For although God cut off some of the natural branches of the Olive Tree, which is Israel, to graft-in some of us Gentiles as wild branches into the natural tree, He intends to graft some of those natural branches back into the natural tree, and He will also cut off any of the grafted-in branches that do not “continue in His kindness.” The purpose of Gentiles following the Jewish Messiah Yeshua was to bring the Jews to jealousy, so that they would develop eyes to see and ears to hear and recognize their Messiah, calling out, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord,” which is the very thing that will bring about our Messiah’s Second Coming.

The age of the Gentiles is about to come to a close, and Jews are discovering their Messiah more today than ever before in the last 2000 years. We must be sure to join with them as one, for we are one in Christ, and that is the core message of these verses. We do not want to risk being cut off by behaving in the same way as the Pharisees of Jesus’s day, blindly following tradition and ignoring the commandments of God. Jews are learning to follow Jesus again because they are learning that our Messiah truly upheld the law and the prophets, and instructed us to follow these commandments, also, with a new understanding “in spirit and truth,” with love. The Messiah would never do away with the law, and He didn’t. Now that Jews are recognizing this in greater number, the remnant among the Gentiles also ought to come to see this truth and embrace it, coming together as One Body in Christ, not two. There is only One Messiah and One way to Salvation, and that Way, Truth, and Life is in Jesus

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“Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings, and also Demas. Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the church that is in her house.”
Colossians 4:12-15

Paul calls out Epaphras, who is a servant of Christ but also “one of your number,” meaning that he is a member of the church in Colossi, but he is visiting with Paul. While on this pilgrimage to visit his overseer Paul, he is praying for the church back home. I’ve done this twice, visiting my overseers in Minnesota, and there is nothing like it. What a powerful spiritual refreshing it is to be with the ones who are discipling you in Christ to lead your congregation, to be taught directly by them and advised in how to proceed in the Lord. To spend time together getting to know one another as people, to break bread together, to enjoy each other’s company. It is a blessing like no other. During that time, I’ve also prayed for the men and women of God whom I interact with back home, and these prayers were made with my overseers, too. Paul is an anointed man of God, bringing the wisdom of God like very few other men in the history of mankind, literally teaching the Torah and its realization in Jesus to the Gentiles. What a blessing for Epaphras to spend time with him, and a blessing for Paul to be able to share in the ministry of the Lord with him.

During this visit, I’m certain that Paul and Epaphras spent countless hours in prayer, interceding for the church back home and in all places, asking God to help them “stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God;” meaning to subject themselves in obedience to the commandments while following Christ. Epaphras has a deep concern for the churches he’s overseeing; for Colossi, but also for Laodicea and Hierapolis. It would seem from the text he is a regional leader over hundreds, and Paul is holding him up as someone who should be seen as a pastor in these communities. Prayer is so very important to keep our communication lines open with our Heavenly Father, to build that relationship with the Most High God who loves us and cares for us. In John 14:12-13, we read the Lord Yeshua say: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Whatever we ask that is according to His will and aligned with His Word will be accomplished through prayer.

Along with Epaphras, Luke and Demas are with Paul; these are well-known church leaders in the greater congregation. From the context of the text, Paul is not sending them with the entourage, but he mentions them by name. It would appear Luke and Demas are well known pastors in Laodicea, for Paul sends their greeting to the church in that city for encouragement. It’s helpful to know that the people who lead you to Christ and His Truth are thinking about you and praying about you when they are not with you, and this is why Paul includes them here. They must have visited the home church at Nympha’s house or perhaps even helped to start the church there, for it is clear that Paul wants to encourage Nympha with this letter. Having a home church myself, I can say that this type of encouragement is powerful and means so much to my wife and me as well as the members of the church to hear from the leaders of the affiliate overseeing church and those who have led us to our relationship with the Messiah. Yes, we all are interconnected through Christ, but as we all know, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” This type of encouragement is needed to keep the flesh at bay so the spirit can remain strong and endure in the faith, looking to Christ as the finisher of our faith.

It would appear from the way Paul writes this final greeting in his letter, that there was an event it precipitated. The letter was written to the church in Colossi, but the brethren in Laodicea and Hierapolis might have come to hear it read. Perhaps church elders made copies to share with those who could not make it? We know that the Book to the Colossians is preserved as part of Scripture today, and so many copies would have needed to be made to preserve it until it was added to the Canon.

I can imagine this Sabbath gathering being amazing; a packed room with some of the older folks sitting, but many others standing, children playing outside as their parents listened. I can see Tychicus getting up to the front of the room, unfurling the letter and reading the words, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” The room would be so silent you could hear a pin drop. After the letter was read, Tychicus, Onesimus and the other elders would have answered questions about what Paul meant, they would pray, they would worship. They would probably offer to make copies of the letter for other elders to study. Sermons would be written about this letter for months, years, decades, even millennia. To be there in the beginning, though, now that would have been something. Someday, in the Kingdom of Heaven, we will meet these men and share in the heritage that they taught.

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“When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.”
Colossians 4:16

“When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.”

I read this verse into the text from the previous few verses, but here it is in black and white. To be in that room…what excitement! Thank God this letter was preserved for us to share in its wisdom.

Paul was a Pharisaical Jew taught by Gamaliel, a Pharisee and a grandson of Rabbi Hillel, one of the best-known Pharisees of all time, and while Paul himself said in Philippians 3:7-14 that this experience and knowledge he had gained was “rubbish” in the flesh compared with the salvation he received from Christ in the spirit—and he’s right—it was still extremely useful for his mission that Jesus Christ himself selected him to embark on. This was a knowledge that God put in Him for a purpose. While the works in the flesh are irrelevant for salvation, for we are saved by grace alone, it is imperative to note that we are saved to embark on “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” for the resurrection to come. It is my belief that Jesus called Paul because of his expertise, to teach the Gentiles who knew nothing, but also to humble him into the knowledge of the Truth, which is that only faith in Christ can save. Ultimately, this is what he taught and it is the truth.

As one who grew up ignorant of the Truth in the Catholic Church, I discovered the Truth directly by reading God’s Word and asking Him to reveal it to me. God did this in two ways: 1) By sending me a teacher—like Philip was sent to the Eunuch or Ananias and Sapphira were sent to Apollos, to “teach him the Word of God more accurately,” or even as Ananias was sent to Paul who was then Saul—and, 2) By laying on his Holy Spirit to help reveal His Truth in the Word as I study it every day and night. As this Truth was revealed, it was like a veil was removed from my eyes, similar to how Paul’s blindness was removed in Acts 8:17-18: “Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.”

Since this time, I’ve discovered that I am actually 15 percent Jewish via a DNA test, and although God loves His people, His people comprise those who love Him and keep His commandments. As Paul notes in Philippians 3:3: “For we are the circumcision [we are of Israel], who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”  As Paul said, to Trust in the name of Yeshua is all that matters, and the good fruit comes from this when it is authentic, and the intimacy of relationship with God increases from there, as we “press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus Christ Himself called Paul to teach the Truth to the Gentiles, and Paul’s commentary on the Torah and the Prophets interpreted with the light of Jesus Christ is among the most powerful words in the Canon. It’s probably not possible to find a greater teacher for the Gentiles than him, other than the Holy Spirit who teaches us directly when we read the Word. Peter and James, as untaught and untrained Jews, were called to go to the Jewish leaders to teach the Gospel—they stood beside the experts in the law and taught to the point where the leaders knew they had been with Jesus. How could they have such knowledge of God any other way? Then came Paul, whom Jesus instructed to go to the Gentiles. Jesus didn’t send the experts of the law to the experts in the law, he sent the untrained and unlearned. He sent Paul, an expert in the law, to those who were untrained in the law so he could instruct them in all the ways of the Truth. Ultimately, the experts in the law would come out to accuse the Gentiles of walking unrighteously in the faith, but the Gentiles had Paul, an expert in the law, to defend them. There’s no way this was arranged by anyone but God, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

For reference, Paul writes in Philippians 3:7-14: “If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

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“Say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you.” Colossians 4:17-18

Paul’s last encouragement is to Archippus, a “fellow soldier” according to Philemon 1:2, and potentially part of Philemon’s household, where another home church gathered. Paul instructs him to take heed to the ministry that he received from the Lord, to fulfill it, indicating he had been called by Jesus to lead a congregation as an pastor or a mission as an evangelist. In 2 Timothy 2:4, we read, “No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” In 2 Corinthians 10:3-6, we read, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”

The walk as a spiritual leader is much like going into battle as a warrior, and often as a general, leading other soldiers into war. We must not concern ourselves with what we need in this world, or the desires of the flesh, but we must turn instead to focus on the Kingdom of Heaven, seeking it with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength with love toward God, which means obedience to His commandments; for He is our Commander and Chief, and we also must trust that everything we need will be added to us. Our duty is to please the one who enlisted us as a soldier; namely, Jesus Christ. The battle comes daily, and it is not carnal but mighty in God against false doctrines and established traditions of men, against the pride of life and the pride of men above the Word of God, and against anyone who thinks they know better than God; men who follow after their own heart or their own way, rather than the way that God has prepared beforehand so we can walk in it.

In another clear war metaphor, Paul writes in Ephesians 6:10-18: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—“

And so when Paul instructs Archippus to fulfill the ministry, He’s telling him to fight the good fight, to run the race so as to obtain the prize. Just as Jesus came to “fulfill the law,” so must Archippus, and anyone who says “Lord, Lord.” To love the Lord is to keep His commandments. Paul is exhorting this leader to endure in His faith through his sanctification by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit indeed will give him the power to do just that. All leaders need such encouragement, for we can not allow the seeds of discouragement or doubt to creep in, and we certainly don’t want to be distracted by the flesh or the ways of the World. We need constant prayer, constant realignment, to renew the spirit of our mind and die daily in the flesh, so that we can continue to focus on our walk in the Spirit down the narrow path toward that narrow gate that leads into the Kingdom of God.

Ultimately, Paul endorses his letter to Colossi and Laodicia by his own hand, making it clear that he is behind this teaching. He asks the church to remember his imprisonment—not that he wants to be freed, but that he is fruitful for the Lord while in chains. In Hebrews 13:3, the writer says, “Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also.” Prayer is critical for those who are persecuted for the Lord, for in their endurance through this ordeal, God only knows how many might come to faith. Consider the jailer and his household who came to faith on account of Paul’s imprisonment in Acts 16. Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:12-13: “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” Jesus says to those whom He will welcome into the Kingdom of God, “I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.” Remember those in chains for the Lord.

Finally, Paul prays, “Grace be with you.” This is part of the priestly blessing, which we find in Numbers 6:23-27, “Say to them: ‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.’” This is a common prayer and greeting in the letters written by the apostles. Notice Romans 1:7: “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter gives this blessing in 2 Peter 1:2-3: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.” In Luke 24:50-51, we see this blessing was also Jesus’s last words before He ascended into Heaven: “And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.”

And so may the Lord bless and keep you in His grace through the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.