“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. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (rule and authority).” Colossians 2:8-10
If you are like me, you really hate getting cheated. Maybe you read an advertisement offering a brand new detergent that promised to get your clothes cleaner than ever before. So you go to the store and pay more than you usually do to get this new, improved product, you take it home and try it out. Then, you find out that, not only doesn’t it get your wash any cleaner, it makes your skin break out in a rash when you wear your clothes! “I was robbed!” you might say. “I was cheated! This company promised something they couldn’t deliver!”
The Apostle Paul was writing a letter to a church he had never visited. The church in a small, unimportant town called Colosse. But when we read this letter today, it’s clear that Paul was greatly concerned about the Colossian church. His friend Epaphras came from Colosse, and he had brought Paul some disturbing news. There were some teachers in the town who were offering some ideas to the people that they said would improve their Christian lives.
Now, before I describe these ideas, I want to ask you: “Have you ever read a book or heard a speaker or watched a TV program that made some promises or claims to be able to improve your life with Jesus Christ? Maybe by using this or that special prayer? Or meditating on this or that scripture verse? Or studying this or that new doctrinal view? Doctrine is just another word for a teaching or a basis for belief, a matter of faith. And ever since the Lord Jesus came and walked the earth, various teachings have arisen about Him and His life and ministry. Some of these teachings are true, and some are questionable. Sadly, there are many doctrines being taught that are untrue.
Why was Paul eager to tell the Colossian Christians that the “fullness of the Godhead dwells” in Jesus Christ? And that those believers are “complete in Him,” that is, in Christ? It is because the ideas the new teachers were presenting--the so-called improvements to their Christian lives-- were “not according to Christ.” And because of that, they were unnecessary, untrue, and actually harmful.
Of course, Paul’s friendship with Epaphras had informed him of the teachings about Christ that had originally been shared with the Colossians. The gospel message that Jesus, God’s Son, had come into the world as the promised Savior long foretold by the Hebrew prophets. That He had traveled around the land of Israel teaching and performing miracles, proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom to the people. And that this Jesus had been condemned by the Jewish leaders and handed over to the Romans to be put to death on the cross. After being in the tomb for three days, Jesus rose from death and appeared to hundreds of people alive again. Finally, He commissioned His followers to “go and make disciples from every nation.” Then He ascended to His Father’s throne in heaven, one day to return to earth in order to judge all of mankind and make all things new!
Learning about Jesus Christ, trusting Him for salvation from sin’s punishment, and following His teachings given through His apostles--these were originally all that the Colossians needed. Those who believed, trusted, and were devoted to Christ made up the Colossian church. But then, some new teachers had made their way into this fellowship of believers. They had originally claimed to be fellow Christians. But soon, they began spreading some strange new ideas.
Paul spends a lot of his letter writing about the sufficiency and completeness of Christ. This is a topic that needs to be emphasized in our own day. In the Colossian church, people began to wonder, “Is it truly enough to trust and follow Jesus, learn to obey Him, and seek to share this simple message with others? Is it not necessary to observe some of the old Jewish traditions like circumcision and special feast days and abstaining from certain foods and drinks? Perhaps the path to greater holiness means communicating with angelic beings and even worshiping them, or learning some mystical truths about the spirit world?”
Paul wrote in our passage that these newer ideas came from “philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” Now, let’s be careful here. Not all philosophy is evil and deceptive. Not all traditions and basic principles are wrong or misleading. It is only when these things are designed to ADD something to the gospel and doctrine of God’s Word that they become deceitful and dangerous.
When the Lord Jesus came and began teaching the Jewish people of His day, they had many traditions and philosophies that were not based on the Scriptures God had given them. Jesus said that many of their beliefs were simply based on man’s own ideas and not on God’s Word. For example, it is one of the Ten Commandments that they were to “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” Well in order to do that, the Jewish leaders called Pharisees had come up with hundreds of traditions like how many steps a person could walk on the Sabbath, or what kind of ailment it was permitted to heal on the Sabbath. They had made up so many rules that people no longer looked forward to that day as one of joyful rest, but one of dread and drudgery.
Jesus taught that the Sabbath was made for man’s benefit, not his bondage to a bunch of rules. Well, the religious leaders didn’t like that. They wanted to tie the people to their traditions because it gave them a sense of authority and prestige: “We are holier than you because we keep all of the Sabbath rules and you can’t be bothered to be as serious as we are!”
The new teachers in Colosse claimed that simple faith in Christ and His Word wasn’t enough to make believers acceptable in God’s sight. They wanted to add some suggestions or requirements to strengthen people’s acceptability before God. They taught that if a Christian is really serious about pleasing God, they would add on some disciplines that went above and beyond what God required of them.
But just think about it: If a sinner could please God by following some hard disciplines of abstinence or self-denial, then why did Jesus have to come and become our Savior? If you and I are required to suffer through a lot of man-made requirements to be acceptable to God, then why did the Father require His only begotten Son to suffer and die on the cross in our place? We sing the old hymn: “Jesus paid it ALL. ALL to Him I owe.” We were created by God, and therefore we owed Him all our love and trust and obedience. But none of us have paid that debt. In fact, we were born in sin and alienated from God in our hearts, minds and actions. Only Jesus Christ the Savior lived a perfect, sinless life. Only He kept God’s law fully and completely. Only Jesus.
Sin means more than hurting people, lying to people, cheating people, hating people. Sin is any thought, word, or deed that violates the perfect, holy law of our righteous Creator. Any of His commandments. God is the Supreme King of the Universe, the One who made every person and every thing there is. He is our Author, so He has all Authority. Including the authority to make and enforce His commands. We all have sinned--we’ve rebelled against our supreme Commander.
But God is so much more than a rule-maker. More than a king or a judge. God is first of all a Father. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a Trinity of Persons who have loved one another from all eternity, and who desired to share that love with a beloved, adopted household of children. The Apostle John wrote, “But as many as received Him (Christ), to them He gave the authority to become the sons of God, even to them who believe on His name.”
How do you and I receive Jesus? By believing on His name. By learning who this Jesus was and is, what He came to accomplish, and trusting that He did it all so that my sins could be forgiven and washed away. Jesus came to rescue sinners from their lives of sin, and from the punishment that their sins deserved. He bore the sins of His people while He hung there on the cruel cross. Because He took my guilt and my punishment, I am forgiven and freed from that death sentence. My acceptance by God the righteous Judge is guaranteed since Christ died in my place!
How audacious and ridiculous it is for philosophers and religious thinkers to even attempt to add something to what Christ has already accomplished for sinners like us to be made acceptable. Does such an attempt come from an over-active conscience that just can’t believe that salvation could be that simple? A mind that insists that there must be something a person has to contribute? Perhaps.
But Paul makes use of the word “deceit.” And he also warns his readers that they might be “cheated” by these foreign ideas. Those who cheat and deceive are out to deliberately make us believe what is not true. There are teachers who are merely mistaken in their doctrinal beliefs. But other teachers know full well what the Bible teaches about Christ, and yet they seek to lead believers in His simple gospel astray with teachings that “add” to or contradict God’s message.
The first one to use such tactics was Satan himself, that fallen angel who used the form of a serpent to perform a deception on Eve in the Garden of Eden. He began by questioning the word of God: “Has God said that you may not eat from any of the trees of the Garden?” Notice that this is, on its surface, a confusing question. Did Satan mean to ask if there were ANY trees that were forbidden? Or did he mean to suggest that God had forbidden ANY and ALL trees and their fruit? What is clear in his question is the point of God saying “you may not.” What Satan was hinting at was the idea of God’s authority and His fairness. The suggestion that a God who makes a rule that FORBIDS something is a God who unfairly LIMITS our freedom.
A deception usually begins with a subtle suggestion. The devil is sinuous. He INSINUATES that God is not the loving, kind, gracious Person He claims to be. The same insinuation is evident in the teaching of many religious thinkers. “The gospel seems so simple and so gracious. But there is still more for US to do to gain God’s ultimate approval.” In other words, “Jesus made a down payment...but He did not pay it ALL.”
Satan plants doubts in Eve’s mind about the authority and goodness of her Creator. Then he continues his deception by actually attacking God’s word. “You will not surely die if you eat the forbidden fruit,” he tells her. “You will be like God, knowing good and evil. Disobeying God’s command will make you truly FREE!”
We know from studying the Bible that Satan was created by God as one of His chief angels. But at one point, this beautiful angel convinced himself that he deserved more than God had given him and created him to be. He was not content with his Master’s word and will. He wanted MORE. Because of his rebellion, many of the angels fell with him, and became God’s enemies.
Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 4 that “people will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the doctrines of demons.” When he describes the teachers who teach such doctrines, he mentions that some of them forbid people from getting married and tell them to avoid certain foods that God has permitted to be eaten with thankfulness. The ideas that false, deceptive teachers use to lead their hearers astray, often involve forbidding something that God permits, in order to rise to a higher level of holiness. To them, the simple gospel of knowing and trusting Jesus Christ and obeying His word, is not SUFFICIENT.
False teachers who get their ideas, not from God, but from Satan… not from Jesus and the Apostles, but from demons and their own human reasonings--these teachers are trying to sell you something that cannot deliver what they promise. They are trying to cheat and rob you. Like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day who added burdensome rules to their people to make them feel more righteous and holy, all it did was puff them up with pride (if they kept the rules) or fill them with guilt and steal their joy (if they failed to keep them). Either way, they were refusing to rely on God and trust His word, that His will was best for them.
How then, can we keep from being cheated by false teaching? By believing the gospel and trusting our Lord Jesus Christ. He came and lived a perfect, God-pleasing life here on planet earth, and He did so FOR US. We must admit that we are unable in ourselves to live a totally obedient life before God. Jesus offers to His followers His own perfect robe of righteousness. Once we confess our sinful state and trust our crucified, risen Christ to save us and come into our lives, we continue to trust Him to help us live the Christian life in the power of His Spirit.
Our righteousness before God is IN CHRIST. And our ability to live for God here on earth is also IN CHRIST. The more we know and love Jesus, the more we learn to trust Him, and the happier we are to obey Him. “Trust and Obey, for there’s no other way to be HAPPY in Jesus, but to Trust and Obey!”
Jesus truly did “pay it all.” If we remember all He’s done for us, and all He’s doing IN us, then we’ll never GET CHEATED!
