Worthless Wisdom and the Worthy Lord
Colossians 2:8–10
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
John Bunyan’s masterpiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress, famously illustrates the Christian life as a journey out of the City of Destruction and to the Celestial City. And that journey proceeds along a path that the main character, Christian, walks. Early in the book, a man named Evangelist tells Christian that escape from the City of Destruction and ease from the burden of sin on his back lies through a wicket-gate, under a shining light—and that the path to the wicket gate is the only way to deliverance. And as soon as he hears of it, he runs with all his might toward that light, crying out for the hope of eternal life.
But it’s not very long at all before Christian meets with a finely-dressed gentleman by the name of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who hailed from the town of Carnal Policy. And Worldly Wiseman asks Christian why he’s traveling along that path, when “there is not a more dangerous and troublesome way in the world.” He tells Christian that in the next village, named Morality, there’s another gentleman, whose name is Legality, who is skilled at removing burdens such as Christian carries. It’s an affordable place to live, and there are comfortable accommodations, and there are good neighbors there, and it’s not so far a journey! Morality is not fraught with the difficulties that the way of the cross is fraught with.
And so Christian turns out of his way, and heads over toward the high hill on the way to Morality. But immediately his burden seems heavier to him, and fire flashes out of the hill and terrifies him, and it seems like the hill leans over him, like it’s going to fall on his head! This of course illustrates the terrors of the law of God from Mount Sinai, and how legalistic obedience can never free the conscience from the burden of sin. And Christian regrets that he’d taken Worldly Wiseman’s counsel and turned out of the way of grace. And he weeps bitterly when he realizes that that deviation from the way is akin to renouncing the narrow path of faith and shrinking back to the destruction of seeking righteousness through one’s own works.
Bunyan then writes a little poem to punctuate the lesson he’s teaching. He says, “When Christians unto Carnal Men give ear, / Out of their Way they go, and pay for’t dear. / For Master Worldly Wiseman can but show / A Saint the way to Bondage and to Woe.” Now, Bunyan was a better preacher than he was a poet, but his point is well-made. When Christians pay attention to the fleshly, worldly wisdom of false religion, and secular philosophies, they are inevitably led out of the way of Christ and His cross, out of the way of the grace of God laid hold of by faith alone, and into the bondage and misery of legalism, and self-righteousness.
Well, the Apostle Paul is aiming to impress this same message upon the hearts of the Colossians, as this precious congregation has come under the assaults of “worldly wisemen,” who are seeking to turn them out of their way, enticing them with the false, fleshly wisdom of self-made religion. He speaks in chapter 2 verse 4 of those who would deceivethe Colossians with fine-sounding arguments—arguments that seem persuasive, and plausible, and which have an appearance of truth about them, but which in the end lead only to “bondage and woe.”
And even though Paul never names these arguments with specificity, he gives us hints, right here in chapter 2, which is the very heart of this letter. In verse 16 and 17, we learn that these false teachers were peddling Jewish legalism, as they were advocating for the observance of Old Covenant food laws and calendar days, which Paul says were a shadow of the past age. In verses 18 and 19, he speaks of a pagan mysticism—the worship of angels and seeking revelatory visions in addition to Scripture. This idea was wedded to an early form of Gnosticism, in which true spiritual wisdom and knowledge are granted only to an elite few by participation in exclusive rites and rituals. And in verses 20 to 23, he identifies the false teaching as having components of asceticism—speaking of “self-abasement and severe treatment of the body.”
All of these things, he says, have “the appearance of wisdom.” They seem to be plausible. But all of them are deviations from the true Gospel. And so, as Paul has come to the heart of the letter in chapter 2 verse 6, he brings all that he has said so far—the glories of Christ’s supremacy and sufficiency, the reassurances about the Gospel they had believed, his affirmations of love and concern for them—he brings all of that to a point of application and says, “Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”
In other words, “I want the reality of your union with Christ—that you are justified by grace through faith alone in His blood and righteousness—to shape and drive your day to day life as you press after Christlikeness! Just as your entrance into the Christian life was entirely centered in Christ, so also your continuance in the Christian life must be entirely centered in Christ! We do not move on from Christ as we pursue sanctification; we only press further intoChrist, because He is where all spiritual fullness is found!” Christ is sufficient for the Christian walk.
And so in verses 6 and 7, Paul has begun telling us how to walk. In verse 8, he tells us to watch our step. “Don’t turn out of the way of the grace of the Gospel! Don’t be deceived by worldly wise men seeking to lure you away from grace in to legalism, or mysticism, or Gnosticism, or asceticism, or any other “ism”—any other philosophy of life and morality, any other worldview that promises an easier walk: with less suffering; with less pain from the flesh; with less dishonor from the world; that requires less humility and service; that promises more glory and respect and comfort.
And then, after that warning in verse 8, starting in verse 9 and going all the way to verse 15, he gives us his rationale for not turning aside, out of our way, to the worldly wisdom of false religion and secular philosophies. And that rationale is: that worldly wisdom is worthless and empty and bankrupt, but all spiritual fullness and sufficiency is bound up in Christ. And then in verses 16 to 23, he picks up on the initial warning of verse 8, and gives the specifics to the bankruptcy of worldly wisdom.
Tonight, we’re going to work our way through just the first three verses of this section, verses 8 to 10. Let’s read our text. “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, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of Deity bodily, and in Him you have been filled, and He is the head over all rule and authority.”
Paul gives believers two reasons not to turn aside from Christ as we follow Him on the path of faith, journeying to the Celestial City. Two reasons to walk in Christ in the grace and by the faith by which we received Him at our conversion. Two reasons to reject all alternatives to grace in the pursuit of sanctification. And they are: the deficiency of worldly philosophy, and: the sufficiency of the Supreme Savior.
I. The Deficiency of Worldly Philosophy (v. 8)
The first reason why we ought not to turn aside from the path of grace as we follow Christ in faith is, number one, the deficiency of worldly philosophy. And that comes in verse 8. Again: “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, and not according to Christ.”
The verse begins with a stark warning. “See to it” translates the Greek word Blépete. It literally means, “See!” or “Watch out!” Sometimes it’s translated as “Beware!” If we were to press the metaphor of the Christian walk from verse 6, we might think of this warning as saying, “Watch your step, lest you turn to the right or to the left, and stumble out of the narrow path that you must walk.” Paul has just admonished the Colossians to walk in Christ after the same manner in which they had received Christ, to continue in Him just as they had been instructed. And now he calls them to a constant watchfulness (MacArthur, 99), to be sure that they are not led out of their way by any kind of teaching that is contrary to Christ and the Gospel.
And this certainly is a theme of the New Testament, these warnings not to be taken in by false doctrine. The Lord Jesus used this term in Matthew 24:4, when He warned the disciples not to be taken in by those claiming to be Him. He says, “See to it that no one misleads you.” In Philippians 3:2, Paul warns against the false teaching of the Judaizers with a threefold repetition of this same word: “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.” And even when it’s different words, the same concept is everywhere: Matthew 7:15, Jesus says, “Bewareof the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Acts 20:29–31: Paul says, Be on the alert, for after my departure savage wolves will come in, not sparing the flock.
Talking with some professing believers—even professing Christian teachers and pastors—can leave you with the impression that false teaching is not all that big of a deal; that anyone who insists on retaining the pattern of sound words, or who has the temerity to denounce a particular teaching as contrary to Scripture and to warn the flock about it is just an overwrought heresy hunter. But it doesn’t sound like Jesus or Paul would be safe from that criticism. They certainly seem to be exercised about warning God’s people about false teaching! Doctrinal soundness is of paramount importance to the Apostolic church, because believing the wrong things about the Lord Jesus Christ and the nature of His salvation can actually destroy your soul. And so a faithful pastor not only feeds the flock on sound teaching; he also protects the flock from wolves, in part by equipping the flock to see through their disguises, and to identify how their false teaching deviates from the truth.
And what specifically are they to “watch out” for? “That no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception.” To “take captive” is literally “to carry off”—in the way plunderers carry off the citizens of a conquered people and enslave them as the spoils of war. This is what the false teachers would do to the Colossians if they refused to be on their guard. Paul says something similar to the Galatians in Galatians 5:1. He says, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” You have not been “rescued…from the domain of darkness, and transferred…to the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son,” Colossians 1:13, only to be taken captive once again, and brought back into the bondage of slavery under the domain of darkness! And so be on your guard. Don’t surrender your freedom by wandering from the path of grace. As Calvin put it, “Do not deviate a nail’s breadth from purity of doctrine” (180).
And he says that the danger of this captivity comes through philosophy. Now, the term philosophy comes from two Greek words: philéo, which means “to love,” and sophía, which means “wisdom.” So philosophy, in its broadest sense, is simply “the love of wisdom.” And of course, the people of God cannot be in danger of captivity by means of the pure love of true wisdom! Every commentator I read makes the observation that Paul is not condemning philosophy as suchin verse 8—as if anything that ever went by the name of “philosophy” was somehow automatically opposed to Christian teaching. In fact, one historian observes that “everything that had to do with theories about God and the world and the meaning of human life was called ‘philosophy’ at that time, not only in pagan schools,” he says, “but also in the Jewish schools of the Greek cities” (Schlatter, as in MacArthur, 100). Even the Mosaic law itself would have been considered under the rubric of philosophy in that day (Beale, 174–75n17). So, evidently, Paul does not intend to condemn philosophy in every sense of the word.
The 17th-century commentator, John Davenant, said it this way: “It is certain that [true philosophy] cannot be condemned, lest God himself be called into judgment. For philosophy is the offspring of right reason: and this light of reason is infused into the human mind by God himself.” God gave man a mind, and the capacity to reason above the animals, so that man might behold what God has clearly revealed of Himself in creation, and in the conscience, and be led to the truth of God’s existence and the need to seek Him via His special revelation. And it is among man’s chief sins that he suppresses that truth in unrighteousness, and embraces the irrationality of atheism and unbelief.
But sinners’ abuse of reason—or in one sense, their disuse of reason—gives us no cause to abolish the proper use of reason. For the sake of avoiding rationalism, we don’t embrace irrationality. Our faith may transcend reason, but it does not contradict sound reason. God commands us to acquire wisdom from the Scriptures. He commands us to think rightly about His Word. He says things like Ephesians 5:17, “Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” And 2 Timothy 2:7: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” Even Acts 17:11, where Luke commends the noble Bereans for testing the preaching of Paul and Silas against the Word of God, “examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so”—that testing, that examination, requires the proper use of the intellect to see if the claims of the teachers followed from their premises, to see if their premises were valid, to see if anything they said deviated from the sound teaching of Scripture! God requires the proper use of reason and the pursuit of true wisdom as we subject ourselves to the teaching of the Scriptures.
No, what Paul is condemning here, is a particular kind of philosophical reasoning which does not subject itself to the authority of God’s revealed Word, but which exalts man’s reason above God’s revelation. He calls it “philosophy andempty deception.” And in the original language, it’s very clear that Paul wants us to read that phrase as a unit. He uses one preposition and one article to govern both of those nouns: philosophy and deception. The grammar associates them so closely together. The particular kind of philosophy that Paul is condemning is the empty and deceitful kind. And some commentators even go so far as saying that they’re to be identified: “the philosophy that is empty deception” (Beale, 174n17; cf. Moo, 185; O’Brien, 109–10).
Empty and deceptive philosophy refers to any teaching, or any system of thought, that has its origin not in the revelation of God, but in the vain reasonings and foolish speculations of what is merely human. Much like 1 Timothy 6:20 condemns “knowledge falsely so-called,” Colossians 2:8 condemns philosophy falsely so-called. Philosophy is empty and deceptive when it teaches falsehoods, contrary to the Scriptures—like the pagan teaching of the eternality of the creation: that the universe just always was; or like the lies of evolution: that life randomly emerges from non-life; or like the mortality of the human soul: that your soul goes out of existence at death, rather than going to heaven or hell. Those are all empty and deceptive philosophies.
Philosophy is also empty and deceptive when it gets out of its lane. Things may be true in the realm of nature that are not true in the realm of the divine. In the natural world, nothing can come from nothing; that’s one of the reasons evolution is so absurd. But precisely because He is the God over nature, God has created the world out of nothing. In the natural world, blind men don’t see, virgins don’t get pregnant, and dead men don’t rise and live again. And yet it would be empty and deceptive to use those maxims from the natural world to undermine faith in the miracles of Christ recorded in Scripture.
So, philosophy needs to stay in its lane. Human reason cannot become the standard by which we interpret Scripture, so that we start calling into question those great mysteries that are only apprehended by faith—like the Trinity, the hypostatic union, penal substitutionary atonement. When that happens, we have exalted our reason out of its proper sphere, and have turned it into empty deception. John Gill says, “Philosophy may be useful as a handmaid; it is not to be a mistress in theological things; it may subserve, but not govern; it is not to be made use of as a judge, or rule in such matters.”
But the philosophy of the false teachers in Colossae was empty and deceptive. In turning the Colossians back to the ceremonialism of Old Covenant worship, and in pressing them toward the pagan mysticism of ecstatic visions and the worship of angels, it was devoid any benefit of the truth, because only in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, verse 3. In Him alone are the riches of the glory of the mystery of the Gospel, chapter 1 verse 27. It may have sounded good. It may have sounded plausible. But that is the nature of deception, isn’t it? It masquerades. It tricks. It defrauds—which means you have to be constantly on your guard.
And Paul gives three reasons that the teaching of these heretics was empty and deceptive philosophy—each of them introduced with the prepositional phrase “according to.” The first reason, look again at verse 8, is that such teaching is “according to the tradition of men.” When doctrine has its origin in mere men, it does not have its origin in the truth of God—not in “the word of God,” which Paul preached, chapter 1 verse 25—not in the true instruction that they had received from Epaphras, chapter 2 verse 7.
The Lord Jesus encountered this very problem with the manmade traditions of the Pharisees. In Matthew 15, they ask why His disciples don’t maintain the ceremonial hand-washings of the elders. And in verses 8 and 9, Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 and says they worship God in vain—in emptiness—“teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.” And in the parallel passage in Mark 7 verse 9, he told them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.” You see, it’s a zero-sum game. Eventually, either the tradition of men will give way to the commandment of God, or the commandment of God will be set aside for the sake of human tradition. Just because a belief or a practice is ancient, or it has a respectable pedigree, it doesn’t mean it’s true. It may be old, but if it doesn’t have its origin in the eternal God and His eternal Word, it’s not old enough.
A second reason the false teachers’ philosophy was empty and deceptive was because it was “according to the elementary principles of the world.” The term “elementary principles” refers to the fundamental elements or components of something—like the letters of the alphabet, or the notes on a musical scale. And Paul uses this phrase to refer to the Jewish ceremonies that the false teachers were insisting the Colossians had to keep. He uses this phrase again in verse 20, where he says, “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!’” And then in Galatians chapter 4, as he’s discussing how the Law of God kept the children of God “in custody” until faith came, he says, “while we were children, we were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.” And in Galatians 4:9, he makes the same point that he’s making in Colossians 2: “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?”
And so the point is: the shadows of the ceremonial laws are rudimentary in comparison to the fullness of Christ that has come in the Gospel. They had their place in preparing for the substance of the Gospel—just like studying your ABCs is necessary when you’re learning to read, but entirely out of place in graduate school. Paul calls them “weak and worthless”—not because they’re contemptible in themselves, but because returning to them signified a spiritual regression. And so Paul says, “Those laws were only ever designed to lead you to Christ. Now that He’s here, don’t abandon Him for the sake of the ceremonies! Don’t abandon the substance for the sake of the shadow! Especially when to do so would be to bring yourselves back under the bondage of the curse of the law!”
And then, a third reason why the philosophy of the false teachers was empty and deceptive is that it was “not according to Christ.” And this really summarizes the other two. The Lord Jesus Christ is the sum and substance of all truth! His Gospel of justification by grace through faith alone, apart from works, is the great mystery of the universe now revealed through His preachers! And His revelation, delivered by the Apostles and prophets and recorded for us in the Scriptures is the rule of our lives! Christ Himself is the standard of doctrine and worship (Gill), and you cannot add to Him without subtracting from Him (Moo, 193). You cannot mix the doctrinal standard of Christ with any sort of human philosophical tradition or elementary, legalistic ritualism without totally diluting Him.
And so, dear people, beware of adding to Jesus with empty and deceptive philosophy. That can be the empty and deceptive philosophy of legalism, where you make up rules, beyond what Scripture says, and make those extrabiblical rules the standard for faithfulness in the Christian life. To be sure, you must apply biblical principles; that is not legalism. But going beyond the clear implications of Scripture, and making laws out of things the Bible is silent on, is just another form of worldly wisdom. And that kind of thing is often paired with trust in your own rule-following—your own obedience—to grant you favor with God, rather than trusting in Christ’s obedience alone for your righteousness.
Beware of the empty and deceptive philosophy of syncretism—the sort of “I’m-spiritual-but-not-religious” New-Age-ism that wears Christianity like a skin suit— that uses the name “Jesus,” but remakes Him in the image of their own uber-hip paganism. Talk of “giving vibes” and “manifesting your goals,” of “chakra balancing” and “energy healing,” of identifying God with “the universe,” and attributing the works of His providence as “the universe bringing all things into balance.” That’s just empty, worthless, worldly wisdom, that is no true wisdom at all, because it is not “according to Christ.”
And beware of the empty and deceptive philosophy of therapeutic moralism—the self-esteem gospel, where Jesus is reimagined as something of a therapist or a life coach, who exists to help us feel better about ourselves; where sin excused as “personal fulfillment,” and anyone who calls you out on your sin is dismissed as “problematic,” or “toxic,” or “weaponizing the Bible,” or even “spiritually abusive.” All of that is just “empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” It is worthless, worldly philosophy, and it is deficient in bringing about true holiness and genuine spiritual fulfillment.
II. The Sufficiency of the Supreme Savior (vv. 9–10)
In contrast to that, Paul gives a second reason why we ought not to turn aside from the path of grace as we follow Christ in faith. Not only the deficiency of worldly philosophy, but, number two: the sufficiency of the Supreme Savior. Look at verses 9 and 10: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of Deity bodily, and in Him you have been filled, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” And just as we got three reasons for the deficiency of worldly philosophy, we get three reasons for the sufficiency of the Supreme Savior.
And the first of those reasons is: He is God incarnate. The false teaching is empty deception, but “all the fullness of Deity” dwells in Him! And we’ve seen this movie before. This verse is a deliberate echo of Colossians 1 verse 19, where Paul said, “It was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in” Christ. And when we studied that verse, we mentioned that the only other place in Scripture where “good pleasure,” and “to dwell,” appear together is in the Septuagint—the Greek translation—of Psalm 68:16. That passage says, “Why do you look with envy, O mountains with many peaks, at the mountain in which God was well-pleased to dwell?” And, of course, the mountain in which God was well-pleased to dwell was Mount Moriah, where His temple was constructed.
God was well-pleased to dwell in His temple, which was the place of revelation, where God would speak to Israel from above the mercy seat. The temple was where you would go to hear from God! And you can’t speak of the mercy seat without speaking of atonement. The temple was where the high priest brought the blood of the goat of sacrifice into the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, so that Israel’s sins would be forgiven. The temple was where you would go to be cleansed from your sins! And the temple was where God’s presence was uniquely manifest on earth—where all fellowship with God was to be had. It was where the shekinah glory of God dwelt among His people. You remember how at the completion of the construction of the temple in 1 Kings 8, the glory of the Lord filled the temple, just as it did in the tabernacle in Exodus 40, so that the priests couldn’t even stay in the temple to minister! First Kings 8:12: “Solomon said, ‘Yahweh has said that He would dwell in the thick cloud.” This is God declaring: “I am with My people! I dwell among them!” Almighty God, whom “heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain” (8:27), dwells with His people in fullness of glory, in His temple!
So when Paul says that “all the fullness of Deity…dwells” in Christ, He is saying that Jesus is the fulfillment of the temple of God. He is where the glory of God dwells. He is where God is to be sought. He is where God condescends and meets man and speaks to His people. He is where atonement is made and God’s wrath against sin is satisfied. And He is the one in whom all worship to God is offered. You see, “to meet God, to talk with God, to worship God, you no longer come to a building…made with human hands. You come to Jesus!” (Storms, 226). You don’t go to angels. You don’t seek divine emanations. Jesus is God’s dwelling place!
And that is because Jesus is God Himself! “All the fullness of Deity”—theótes—the full and undivided divine essence—dwells in Him. He is not merely full of the gifts of God, or full of the grace of God, or full of the Spirit of God—like was true of the prophets and the Apostles. He is not some sort of semi-divine being, that was like God in many ways but not fully God. He is not merely one of a descending series of lesser divine beings emanating from an ultimate divine being, like sparks flying off from a greater source of light—which the false teachers in Colossae called “the fullness.” No: the fullness of the Divine nature dwells in Christ! The totality of all the divine perfections are His! Eternity, infinity, aseity, pure actuality, simplicity, immutability, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, holiness, love, sovereignty, wisdom, goodness, faithfulness and truth all exist in their perfect divine fullness in God the Son incarnate.
And when I say “incarnate,” it’s because of that little word at the end of the phrase: “in Him dwells all the fullness of Deity bodily”—which is to say, by personal union to the human nature of Christ, which consists of a rational soul and body: a “fleshly body,” he calls it in chapter 1 verse 22. This is to say that the full, undivided divine nature was united to a true and complete human nature in the One person of the Lord Jesus Christ, “so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion; which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man” (2LCF 8.2). This is that great mystery of godliness, and the glory of the Christian religion: that Jesus Christ, our Savior, is fully and truly God and fully and truly Man.
And I say “is,” because that’s still true of Him. Colossians is written around AD 60, about 30 years after Jesus’ resurrection. And Paul uses the present tense in verse 9: “In Him dwells”—presently, now—“all the fullness of Deity bodily.” Which means that the incarnation was not temporary! Jesus remains incarnate, and He will remain forever incarnate! Dear people: there is a Man who fills the throne of God in heaven. One with your nature, dear believer, reigns supreme over the universe. Contrary to the false teachers, who claimed that matter was inherently evil, and so God could never have truly joined Himself to flesh, Paul says: all the fullness of the divine nature is personally united to the human nature of Jesus, body and soul. Not only during the state of His humiliation on earth, but even now during His exaltation in heaven, and everlastingly for eternity. He will forever be the God-Man! And so, Paul says to the Colossians, how could you desire anything else? All the fullness of Deity dwells bodily in the person of Jesus! He is God incarnate.
A second reason for the sufficiency of the Supreme Savior is, number two, He supplies all spiritual fullness. Verse 10: “and in Him you have been filled.” Jesus doesn’t keep the fullness to Himself! It is out of that plenitude of divine being—out of that richness and abundance of spiritual fullness—that Christ alone supplies every blessing that every sinner could ever desire. He fills us with “all joy and peace in believing,” Romans 15:13. He fills us with “the fruit of righteousness,” Philippians 1:11. He fills us with “the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” Colossians 1:9. And when we come to “know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,” Ephesians 3:19, Paul says that we are “filled up to all the fullness of God” Himself.
The Apostle John says in John 1:16, “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” There is, in this supreme Savior a fullness of sufficiency that quenches every spiritual thirst. I said this in our sermon on chapter 1 verse 19, but I can’t help repeating it: For the hungry, Christ is the bread of life. For the thirsty, He is living water. For the blind, He is the Light of the world. For the ignorant, He is the wisdom of God. For the lost, He is the Good Shepherd who seeks and saves the lost. For the dead, He is the resurrection and the life. For the defiled, He is the fountain of cleansing. For the guilty, He is the Lamb of God. For the troubled, He is the Prince of Peace. For the sorrowful, He is the pearl of great price. O friends, our Christ is full of grace! Everything we could ever wish to have is in Him! And so why would we turn aside from Him—the One in whom all the fullness of Deity dwells! the One who fills us with all spiritual fullness—why would we ever seek spiritual life and sustenance anywhere else?
But Paul’s not done. He gives a third reason for the sufficiency of the Supreme Savior over against the deficiency of worldly philosophy. And that is, number three: He is supreme over every created thing. Second half of verse 10: “and He is the head over all rule and authority.” And just as we saw in chapter 1 verse 16, these terms “rule” and “authority” refer to spiritual beings. He speaks of this just a few verses later in Colossians 2:15: “When [God] had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him,” that is, through Christ. First Peter 3:22 says that Christ “is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”
The cross was Christ’s conquest of the spiritual world. The angels that the Colossians were being told to worship in order to gain full access to God, are subject to Jesus! Hebrews 1:4: Christ has “become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did [the Father] say, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You’ [Psalm 2:7]? And again, ‘I will be a Father to Him and He shall be a Son to Me’ [2 Sam 7:14]? And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, ‘And let all the angels of God worship Him.’” Jesus is the Head of the angels; the angels are told to worship Him. Why would you look to the angels as mediators to God, when you have the Son that the angels worship? “He is the head over all rule and authority.” He is supreme over every created thing.
And so behold, Grace Church, the sufficiency of this Supreme Savior. If He is wisdom incarnate, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and if He fills us with all spiritual wisdom and understanding, what could we possibly gain from worldly philosophies? What guru will teach you more profoundly than incarnate Wisdom? If He Himself is the righteousness of God, and if He credits that perfect righteousness to us by faith alone, apart from works of the Law, why would we think that religious rituals and manmade laws can be any advantage to us in the courtroom of God? the One who is the fulfillment of every ceremony, “the end of the law for righteousness,” Romans 10:4. If He has become our sanctification, our cleansing, and if He fills us with the fruit of righteousness and works in us to will and to work for His good pleasure, what use can mystical visions be to us? And if He is the Supreme Ruler and Head of all creatures—even the angels—why would we seek access to God through any mediator but Him?
Conclusion
In Pilgrim’s Progress, after Christian was admonished by Evangelist for heeding the counsel of Worldly Wiseman, and turning out of the way of the cross; after Christian realized how wicked a thing he had done, he asked Evangelist: “Sir, what think you? Is there Hopes? may I now go back, and go up to the Wicket-Gate? Shall I not be abandoned for this, and sent back from thence ashamed? I am sorry I have hearkened to this man’s counsel; but may my Sin be forgiven?”
Maybe you’re asking that question here tonight. Maybe you’re an unbeliever who has never known the way of grace, but in your spiritual bankruptcy and emptiness, your heart yearns for the One who so abounds in spiritual life and fullness, that He fills His people up to all the fullness of God. Or maybe you’re a believer who has lost your way—perhaps you’ve turned out of your way because you’ve paid heed to the worthless wisdom of worldly philosophy, and have begun relying on those worthless manmade systems for wisdom or for righteous. But you hear from the Word of God that there’s no hope in any of that, and you want to be restored to the way of grace! Hear what Evangelist said to Christian. “Is there hope? May my sin be forgiven?” “[Your] Sin is very great, for by it [you have] committed two evils; [you have] forsaken the Way that is good, to tread in forbidden paths. Yet. Yet will the man at the Gate receive you, for he has good will for men.”
Yes, dear sinner, your sin may be forgiven, because the Man who attends the narrow gate of salvation—named Goodwill in Bunyan’s story—that Man has good will to sinners! “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest!” “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out!” “Every one who thirsts, come to the waters”—to the fountain of Living Water—“and you who have no money come, buy and eat” of the Bread of Life, “without money and without cost”! If you feel the weight of your sin, turn away from it. Come to Christ in faith. Trust in the sufficiency of His death and resurrection for sinners. Put all your confidence in His obedience for your righteousness before God, and you will be forgiven.
But that’s not all Evangelist said to Christian. He spoke that Good News to Him, that the Good Shepherd receives all who come to Him. But he adds this: “Only, said he, take heed that you turn not aside again, lest you perish from the Way, when his wrath is kindled but a little [Psalm 2:12]. … So [Christian] went on with haste, and he did not speak to any man by the way; nor, if any asked him, would he give them an answer. He went like one that was all the while treading on forbidden ground, and could by no means think himself safe, till again he was got into the Way which he left to follow Mr. Worldly-Wiseman’s counsel.”
May we cling to the Way of Grace, as we follow Christ in this world. As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, sowalk in Him. Saved by grace through faith. Living by grace through faith. Remembering the deficiency of worldly philosophy, and the sufficiency of our Supreme Savior.