Col No.18 Two Cul De Sacs and the way out

Just in case the old-fashioned English of the AV throws you, when you get to the 25th verse, though you can use the word supplied, shambles really means marketplace. 1 Corinthians 10 verse 23, we'll read together to the end of the chapter. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient.

All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience' sake.

For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go, whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience' sake. But if any man say unto you, this is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience' sake.

For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other. For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience? For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of, for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Amen.

And I'm reading from the New International Version, which is a very faithful and a very clear translation of the original, particularly this passage. I'm reading from the 16th verse of the second chapter. No, I correct that, I'm reading from the 13th verse of the second chapter, Colossians 2. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.

He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code with its regulations that was against us, and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.

Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Amen. Two cul-de-sacs and a way out. Two cul-de-sacs and a way out.

This is the imagery that suggests itself to me as I have been pouring over the verses that we are going to look at in particular this morning. You know what a cul-de-sac is. There you were on the Durrington Estate and you thought you got a shortcut down onto the Little Hampton Road, but it turned out to be a blind alley, a dead end, a cul-de-sac.

Well, you'll see in these verses of Scripture two blind alleys, theologically speaking, and you'll discover as we reflect upon them in the 19th verse, the way out, the way forward, the way of progress. But let's commence just by means of introduction. At the 16th verse, and look at that word therefore.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink and so on. The word therefore is a blink word. It refers to all that has gone before in the argument of the apostle.

Well, what had gone before? You may remember, though we've missed one Sunday due to our missionary convention, that the last occasion we were discussing and studying together from this chapter, we had brought to the point of our own attention the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. This is precisely what Paul has been referring to in the 13th verse down to the 15th. And in most graphic language, we see the man from Nazareth, the Son of God, climbing the hill called Calvary, and he's got that cross and he's hauling it on his back.

And when he is at the top, having been helped by another who has assisted in bearing the weight, Paul says, I see him not just being nailed to the cross himself, but rather, in my imagination, I think of him taking a document, a legal document. I see that document as being the law of God, the law that God gave to Moses. And as he takes that document in his hand, he's got a hammer, and he's got nails, and he nails it to his cross.

And he blots out, verse 14, the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. This Old Testament law, which could not save us, but rather exposed our sin, which brought us into a knowledge of condemnation, that the Lord Jesus has satisfied in his own body. So the Christian can bask in the glory of forgiveness and say, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Says Paul, this very obstacle, this stumbling block, this thing that stopped us having contact with God, the law which we had broken, the responsibility for the breach, has been taken over by our Lord Jesus. He took it out of the way. He nailed it to his cross.

He despoiled principalities and powers, those forces which kept humankind in bondage. They have been exposed by Jesus, and he has brought through from the ranks of the devil himself, the redeemed community, who rejoice in salvation, blessing, and recognize that they have been freed by the cross work of Jesus. Now, says the apostle, bearing that in mind, therefore, with all this in your thinking, don't let anyone lead you down a blind alley.

Don't let anyone come along and suggest to you that that cross work of the Savior was not sufficient, that it needs something else adding to. And you will discover in these verses that there are two classes of people who use two particular approaches to suggest that the work of Jesus on the cross was not sufficient in and of itself. In the 16th and 17th, Paul makes reference to those who bring into view external regulations.

For those of you who jot down headings, that's the first one. External regulations which are to be added to the gospel as a means of really securing salvation. And as I say, this particular teaching, that by complying with certain requirements which these Judaizers, these false teachers, put before the Colossians, this false teaching was really a cul-de-sac.

It would have led the Colossians down a blind alley. These teachers, as is obvious to you if you read through the 16th and 17th verses, were saying that it wasn't sufficient of itself for a man just to believe certain doctrine. To the doctrine he believed had to be added, if you would credit it, a diet which was to be followed.

So the apostle says, let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink. Don't let him say that doctrine in itself is not enough and that there's a diet that you've got to follow before you can be really and soundly converted. Now this to us seems somewhat strange that anyone could suggest that there's a particular menu which Christians are always to abstain from.

But you see, the early believers in the Lord Jesus, they had the complex situation of living in a society where the meat in the local butcher's shop had been offered first of all to idols. Now I'm told that this doesn't happen in Worthing. Generally you would go to your butcher and you would buy your meat and you would have no conscience about it at all.

But in older times with the superstition about the slaying of animals and the spilling of blood in the Gentile world, the meat was first of all offered to idols before it was put on sale. And so what did the Christian do? There were those Judaizers who came from a Jewish background who said that such meat as this was not to be eaten at all by the Christians. But as you will gather from the passage that we read from Corinthians in the marketplace, there was none other meat available at all.

And then to compound the problem, to make it even more complex, there was the teaching of the law, the Old Testament, the first five books of the Bible in which Moses differentiates between certain clean meat and certain meat that is unclean. Well there were these teachers who were coming along and they were saying, just following the right doctrine is not in itself sufficient for salvation. You also have to follow the right diet and drink.

The Old Testament's got very little to say about drink, although it does of course depreciate, it does rather criticize drunkenness. But here were these Judaizers who were coming along and they were saying, doctrine, well that's necessary, faith in Jesus, but beyond that there are other things that have got to govern your lifestyle for you really to be saved. There's a diet that's to be followed as well as a doctrine to be believed.

And what's more, there are days to be hallowed. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days. Basic to Judaism was the keeping of certain days, annual feasts, days of the full moon, holy days, celebrations.

Were all these to be taken into the New Testament era? Were all these to be complied with by the Christians, those who were not from a Jewish background, who knew very little about this sort of thing? Well, the Judaizing teachers who'd come along and follow the apostle and tried to discourage and to put doubts into the minds of those who had confessed the gospel, they said that it was necessary for salvation not to have a doctrine to be believed, but a diet to be followed and days to be hallowed. But notice the apostle in the 17th verse. These things, these dietary regulations, these holy days of the Old Testament are but a shadow of things which were to come, but the bodies of Christ.

What does he mean by that? Well, the Old Testament tells us that Jesus Christ's goings forth were from of old, from everlasting. He was going to move into the world and so he gets up from the throne and behind the throne there's a great light which always had fallen upon Jesus, but as he moves towards this world, so there's a shadow that's fallen, that's thrown forward, a shadow which will speak of the one who is to come, the shadow of the law, of the prophets, of the altar, of the priest, of the sacrifices, of the whole system of days and holy days, feasts which the Jews would keep, would commemorate, which have a predictive quality and would speak of the ministry of the Messiah when he was to come. So the first inclination of purity was by visual aid presented to the Jews in the form of meats which were clean and unclean.

The whole idea of atonement was basic to animal sacrifice and special days for the keeping of festive occasions. These were the foreshadowings of Jesus. These were the heralds that were going to proclaim that the King is coming, but when the King is present, who wants a herald? When the sun is there, who wants the shadow? And so the apostle says, no, don't let anyone judge you concerning diet or days.

These were but a shadow, a prediction of what was to come, a shadow that was caused by the light behind the body of Christ, but when he came into the world, all that these predicted were fulfilled in and of himself and therefore have no abiding value at all. Let no man judge you in respect of these external regulations. Let no man pontificate upon your salvation simply because you are not following a prescribed diet or set holy days after the Old Testament fashion.

But to the cul-de-sac of external regulation, as depicted in the 16th and 17th verses of my chapter, is also appended the cul-de-sac of internal revelation. Look at the 18th verse. Let no man beguile you, rob you of your reward in a false humility in worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.

The former cul-de-sac, it talked about those who would attach requirements to the gospel. This one speaks directly of those Greek mystics who claim to have a special revelation of God, who have something that is in addition to the gospel message, placing them on a higher pedestal. And so this is the second class of false teacher who comes along, and can you imagine the consternation that's in the mind of the simple Colossian Christian? Does he believe these Jewish teachers? Does he believe these Greek teachers? Now Paul describes these people who claim to have an internal revelation superior to that of the gospel.

Three things he tells us about them which are deduced from the 18th verse. They have an intolerable humility. The NIV gets it precisely when it talks about delighting in a false humility.

You ever met that sort of person? A sort of Uriah Heep. Be he ever so humble. Comes along, tripping down the corridor, glancing out of the corner of his eye into every mirror just to see that his countenance is really humble and his posture is that of abasement.

I'm so very lowly, but let me tell you my brother, my revelation of God is superior. I of course didn't deserve this, but I'm one of these special people that God has given a new gnosis, a new knowledge to, and it's far greater than that of ordinary Bible-believing Christians. Let no man be guileless, says Paul, of your reward who comes in a false humility before you.

And these people, with their intolerable humility, are suggesting that there is an unwarranted intermediary between God and man. Let no man be guileless of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels. You see, this was the idea of these Uriah Heeps of the first century.

They were oh so lowly that they could not possibly approach God through Jesus, so they took the last link in the chain of intercession and hung on to the angels and thought that as a result of the vibration there, it might go through to heaven itself. But there's only one mediator between man and God. Not an angel, not a saint, be he ever so holy.

There is only one who has the office of intermediary, the man, Christ Jesus. So says Paul, don't be put off, don't be led down a blind alley into a cul-de-sac by these so-called humble people who propound an unwarranted intermediary. And who, says the apostle, finally in the 18th verse as he draws a caricature, a cartoon picture of what they're like, says they have an inflatable mentality, a balloon-like mind which can be blown up by air but it adds to nothing as far as biblical revelation is concerned.

Vainly, he says, they're puffed up by their fleshly minds. So you've got the point. Here is the apostle who has brought before us this dramatic picture of Jesus nailing the law which was against us to his cross.

Here is the apostle Paul, having repeated it previously, arguing for the sufficiency of Calvary. And now he turns his attention towards those who would lead Christians down a cul-de-sac, that of external regulation, that of internal revelation. And says, Paul, beware of these men.

Ah, but you say, this has got very little purchase for us today. That might have been the situation in the first century, but it doesn't apply to us today. No? Are there not those who try to add to the gospel, who try to tell us that it's not intellectually acceptable simply to put your trust and confidence in Jesus? There are certain things that you've got to add.

There are certain requirements which are necessary to evangelicalism, certain lifestyles. And people sometimes draw unwarranted conclusions which have no basis in scripture. I remember, and it's humorous enough now, it wasn't at the time, as a student preaching in the northern coastal resort of Scarborough, and the end of a weekend's meetings, standing at the door of the church bidding adieu to the congregation with the rest of my colleagues, a little lady came along and she had in her hand what I took to be a ten shilling note.

And I thought, well, bless her, she realizes the problems that confront students. So I thanked her profusely without, of course, looking at what was in her hand and placed the currency in my pocket. I forgot all about it until we were driving down the motorway.

Then I thought I must take that ten shilling note and put it in my wallet in a safer place. And when I took it out of my pocket, I discovered that far from being currency, it was a tract entitled, Why Christians Should Not Eat Pork. Far from helping me spiritually, it nearly caused a collision on the motorway.

But there are more serious ways in which we can add to the gospel. People sometimes who impose, maybe upon their children, the best intentions of the world, requirements which are not necessarily biblical, overreaching themselves, concerned for their child, but maybe with an undue sensitivity. How many girls have been concerned because some matriarchal figure has come along and said, if you put some powder on your cheeks, you're letting the Lord down without any due concern to the invisible nail varnish that the matriarchal person may be wearing on her own fingernails.

I mention these things not tritely. God knows they have caused enough problems within the Christian church. And parents need wisdom, wisdom from God, in dealing with some of the most serious issues, which sometimes are not in blacks and whites, but in grays.

And we must be careful not to put upon our children some aspect of the gospel, give them some impression of Jesus, which suggests that he is so much of a Puritan and a kill joy that he can't enter into their environment and indulge himself in the joie de vivre, in the joy of life. I tell you, with my heart bleeding as a pastor, I have interviewed more than one person who has been put off from the gospel of Jesus Christ because of what was imposed upon them with the best will in the world, in an evangelical environment, which had restrictions and a straight jacket, which were not found as warranted from the Word of God. We must be careful that we do not add regulations to the gospel, which were never basically there.

And as for internal revelation, no, we're not so concerned about the worshipping of angels today. We're a little more sophisticated than the first century, but I notice with all the acclaim that's being given to the Roman Pontiff at the moment, as a result of his excursions behind the Iron Curtain, he has committed to the care of Mary, the Christians of Poland and Czechoslovakia and Hungary. And in the paper that I read, which happens to be the same as our brother Bruce Wayland, every day, more or less in the personal column, you'll find thanks being offered to St. Jude and St. Margaret and St. somebody or other for prayers that have been answered, when the Bible tells us that this internal revelation of the church, that prayers can be offered to anyone else save to God through Jesus, is unwarranted and a caricature of New Testament teaching.

Well, what do you do when you're trapped in a cul-de-sac? You look for a way out. And the Apostle Paul is concerned not only to be negative in his preaching, in his teaching, in his writings, but to be positive also. And so in the 19th verse, we find him spelling out essential redirections.

He's made reference to external regulations and to internal revelations. Now here are essential redirections. The Apostle diagnoses the spiritual problem of these Judaizers, these Greek philosophers, and he says in the words of the NIV translation, the trouble with these people, verse 19, is they have lost connection with the head.

They're not attached to the Lord Jesus. Here is one of the favorite analogies of the Apostle when he is describing the Christian church. He says that its head is none other than Jesus Christ.

Look at the 18th verse of the previous chapter. Jesus is the head of the body, the church. Look again at the 24th verse, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church.

The problem with these false teachers is that they knew nothing of entry into the body of Christ. They were not loyal to the head, for though they represented an institutional organization, they knew nothing of the dynamic living organism which the church of Jesus represents. Now says the Apostle, if you're lost in a theological cul-de-sac, let me tell you that you'll never break through into truth.

That way you've got to come back. And where do you go? Well, you go to the cross. And who is on the cross? Well, it is he who is the head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The one, and here we go through the teaching of the 19th verse, who is first of all the source of all salvation, the source of all salvation. The head is vital to the body, obviously so, on a physiological level. The body cannot be sustained in its life without the head, so Jesus is the source of all salvation.

The third verse of the second chapter, in Jesus are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In the sixth verse, as you therefore have been incorporated into Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. The ninth and the tenth verses, for in Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.

There is salvation in none other, and to his work at the cross nothing can be added, for strangely enough, if you add to the work, you subtract from it. It is sufficient in and of itself. Thus the apostle will in a later epistle say that it is in the cross of Christ that he glories.

God forbid that I should glory in anything else save the cross of the Lord Jesus. Why, Paul, why are you so concerned along this line? Well, says the apostle, it's because there are those who come along and detract from the cross of Christ, and I know that there's salvation in none other. I know that he is the source of salvation.

He is the very one who has been brought into this world by God the Father to offer salvation to men and women who will believe in him and outside of Christ Jesus. There is no redemption. There is no forgiveness.

Not only is Jesus, from verse 19, reckoned to be the source of all salvation, he is the sustainer of the church. Developing the physiological metaphor here, we have the thought of the body being held together by joints and bands, by ligaments, by sinews. Now all the joints, all the muscular activities of the body are controlled by the head.

You have a complex nervous system, far more complicated than the most complex computer that some of our large industrial firms can produce today. And it's all united in the head. My whole body is conditioned by the head.

I'm strapped together by my muscles, by my sinews, by my ligaments, but the control is still in my head. So it is with the church. Jesus is the head, the source of salvation.

He is the sustainer of the church. And what's more, he is the succorer. Again, look at the latter part of the 19th verse.

Having nourishment ministered and knit together increases with the increase of God. The pituitary gland, based at the back of the head, secretes a hormone of which conditions the growth of the body, a very vital aspect of human anatomy, basic to the understanding of human physiology. So it is with the church.

She cannot grow outside of Jesus. The growth hormone, so to speak, is in Jesus himself. But when men and women have confessed their sins, when they've come to the cross, when they've seen those ugly ordinances which were against them, not ugly in themselves, but ugly because they broke them, then they're incorporated into the very body of Jesus.

They become members of a new community. They become sons of the living God, daughters of the living God. But how do they grow? Do they grow as a result of their own attempts? No, they tried that way before.

They tried the way of works, and it didn't produce the required effect at all. They grow because they are in the body. They grow because they're in the vine, the very power of Jesus, the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

It is vital to Christian growth. You can't grow without this. So you see the point.

External regulation, internal revelation, all these are cul-de-sacs, my friend. There is one thing that is basic to becoming a Christian, one essential redirection which must be given to everyone, and that is to go to the cross and confess your sin, to acknowledge the headship of Jesus, not just because he's a sort of prime minister over the church, but rather because he is part of the church. The body takes its sap, takes its vitality from Christ the head, and the Spirit of God which pulsates through the body with all his magnificent gifts, enables the body of Christ to function correctly and perfectly in this world.

Now who is going to argue against this? Who is going to say the Apostle Paul is wrong? If you do so, you're denying the faith, you're denying the gospel. There is only one gospel, my friend. It's the gospel preceding John 3.16. It allows no modification, be it by pontiff or philosopher.

It is the gospel of the carpenter, the gospel of the blessed Son of God who one day climbed that hill called Calvary and on the top was pinned to a Roman gibbet, that Christ who went through the depths of hell for you and for me to ransom men and women who would acknowledge who he is and what he has done. And to be a Christian is to believe that and to realize that you can contribute nothing to your salvation but are utterly and totally dependent upon the infilling of the Spirit of God to nourish you upon conversion and to keep you in a right relationship with the head of the church, even Jesus, away with the cul-de-sacs and back to the only path that leads to God, Jesus Christ. Amen.

And now let's join in the grace, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen.