. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY
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Bishop J. B. Lightfoot says of the Epistle to the Colossians, ?The
doctrine of the Person of Christ is here stated with greater precision and
fulness than in any other of St. Paul?s epistles.? The reason for this is
that the Colossian heresy in its attack upon the Person of the Lord Jesus,
made it imperative that the great Apostle meet it with such precision and
fulness in doctrine regarding His Person as would successfully cope with
the false teachings of this system. In order to understand the full
implications of the truth in Colossians, the student must first acquaint
himself with this heresy. Internal evidence in the letter indicates that
the heresy with which Paul is dealing, contains two elements that are
fused into one system. His mention of the observance of sabbaths and new
moons, his distinction between meats and drinks, and his reference to
circumcision, all point to an element of Judaism in this system.
His reference to a self-imposed humility and service of angels, the hard
treatment of the body, and a superior wisdom, indicates that he is dealing
with a Gnostic element. The word ?Gnostic? comes from the Greek gn?sis
(??????) which means ?knowledge.? It is the name designating an
intellectual oligarchy, a few who set themselves above all others as
possessing a superior knowledge. We will look at Gnosticism. This school
of thought was concerned with two questions: first, How can the work of
creation be explained? and, second, How are we to account for the
existence of evil? These two questions posed the following problem,
namely, How can one reconcile the creation of the world and the existence
of evil with the conception of God as the absolute Being? In other words,
How explain the fact of a holy God as Creator, and a universe in which
there is sin? The Gnostic argued as follows: If God had created the
universe out of nothing, and evolved it directly from Himself, then God
being holy, could not have brought an evil universe into existence.
Otherwise, one is driven to the inescapable conclusion that God created
evil, which is impossible, since He is holy. But the fact of a holy God
and an evil universe still remained, and the Gnostic must explain. He does
so by putting forth the theory of some antagonistic principle, independent
of God, by which His creative energy was thwarted and limited.
This opposing principle of evil he thought of as the world of matter.
Thus, evil is seen by him to be residing in the material universe. The
Gnostic then asks the questions, How then is creation possible? How can
the Infinite communicate with the finite, the good with the evil? How can
God act on matter? God, he says, is perfect, absolute, incomprehensible.
The Gnostic answers his own question by saying that the difficulty is
solved by the theory that God must have limited Himself in some way in the
act of creation. There must have been some evolution, some effluence from
God. There was a germination of God. This first germination evolved a
second, and so the process went on. The more numerous the emanations, the
farther away from Deity they became, and as a result the divine element in
them became more feeble, until it became so diffused that contact with
matter was possible, and creation took place. Thus, the gap between a holy
creator God and matter which, according to the Gnostic is evil, is bridged
by these emanations from God that are so far removed from a Deity who is
holy, that matter could be created which is inherently evil, and this act
of creation could not be attributed to a holy God. In this way, the
Gnostic brushes aside the intermediate agent in creation, the Lord Jesus
(John 1:3), and the fact that God put a curse upon the perfect creation
because of sin (Rom. 8:20). Paul says in the latter text that the creation
was made subject to futility (vanity mataios (???????)). That is, God
rendered it relatively futile so far as glorifying Him was concerned. From
these philosophical speculations, two opposing codes of ethics emerged, a
rigid asceticism and an unrestrained license.
The problem confronting the Gnostic was as follows: Since matter is evil,
how can one avoid its baneful influence and thus keep his higher nature
unsullied? The answer, according to one group, was a rigid asceticism. All
contact with matter should be reduced to a minimum. Thus, the material
part of man would be subdued and mortified. One should live on a spare
diet and abstain from marriage. The edible flesh of animals was forbidden.
The anointing of the body with olive oil, so necessary in hot climates,
was prohibited. But with others, such a negative course of procedure
produced but slight and inadequate results. These argued that matter is
everywhere. One cannot escape contact with it. Therefore, one should
cultivate an entire indifference to the world of sense. One should not
give matter any thought one way or the other, but just follow one?s own
impulses. How like the behavioristic psychology of today. This group
argued that the ascetic principle gives a certain importance to matter,
and thus he fails to assert his own independence to it. The true rule of
life is to treat matter as foreign or alien to one, and as something
towards which one has no duties or obligations, and which one can use or
leave unused as one likes. This philosophy led to unbridled license.
Gnosticism as described above, had no connection with Christianity in
itself. That which channeled it into the thinking of the professing
Christian Church was a sect of Jews who were called Essenes. The Essene
was a mystic, and a member of a brotherhood.
The characteristic feature of Essenism was mystic speculation involving a
rigid asceticism. However, the Essene also included in his system, a
rigorous observance of the Mosaic ritual. In his strict abstinence from
work on the Sabbath, he far surpassed other Jews. He would not light a
fire or move a vessel. He would not perform the most ordinary functions of
life. His whole day was given over to religious exercises and the
exposition of the Scriptures. After God, the name of Moses was held in the
highest reverence. The one who blasphemed the name of Moses, was punished
by death. But the Essenes went beyond the Mosaic legislation. Marriage to
them was an abomination. To secure the continuance of the order, they
adopted children.
Some accepted marriage as necessary for the preservation of the race, but
nevertheless regarded it as an evil. The Essenes drank no wine, nor did
they eat animal food. They lived on bread and vegetables. They refused to
anoint their bodies with olive oil, which in hot countries is almost
necessary to life. They condemned in any form the natural cravings, and
sought to disengage themselves from all conditions of physical life. In
addition to these practices, the Essenes were sun-worshippers. At
day-break they would address certain prayers to the sun as if entreating
it to rise. They would bury all polluting substances so as not to insult
the rays of the god.
The Essenes did not believe in the resurrection of the body, but confined
themselves to a belief in the countinuance of the soul-life after death.
This is, of course, in line with their belief that matter is evil. They
maintained that the soul was confined in the body as a prisoner in jail,
and that only after death, would it be free by reason of its escape from
the body. They rejected the blood sacrifices of Judaism, and instead sent
bloodless offerings to the Temple as gifts. They placed angels in the
category of beings that should be worshipped. Like the Gnostics who prided
themselves upon the exclusive possession of religious secrets, the Essenes
had their secret doctrines which were the possession of an exclusive few,
and these they refused to divulge except to initiates to their order.
These false doctrines and practices had crept in to the local church at
Colossae. Paul?s letter to this church was designed to combat them. One of
these errors was an intellectual oligarchy in religion, namely, the
teaching that a select few had a monopoly in a superior wisdom.
The apostle meets this by contending for the universality of the gospel
message. But Paul, in maintaining this doctrine, has changed his mode of
attack. He is not here contending against a national exclusiveness in
religion, which was true of Pharasaic Judaism, but against the
intellectual exclusiveness in religion of the Essenes which was even more
fatal to the claims of the gospel because more specious and insidious.
Paul warns every man and teaches every man in every wisdom, that he may
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. The word ?perfect? was the term
applied by the Gnostics to members of the exclusive group which possessed
the superior wisdom. The Gnostics made much of wisdom (sophia (?????)),
intelligence (sunesis (???????)), and knowledge (epign?sis (?????????)).
Paul takes up the language of the Gnostics and translates it to the higher
spheres of Christian thought. Against the false wisdom of the Gnostics,
the apostle sets the true wisdom of the gospel. The initiatory rites of
these Gnostics in which certain were inducted into their order, were
secret mysteries. Paul sets over against these the fact that all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in that comprehensive
mystery, the knowledge of God in Christ.
Paul had also to combat the Gnostic teaching of successive emanations from
deity, the angelic mediators who were responsible for the act of creation,
and for the headship of the spiritual creation, which took the place of
the Lord Jesus as Creator of the universe and Head of the Church. The
apostle meets these false doctrines by showing that ?all things were
created by Him,? and ?He is Head of the body, the Church.? As to the
teaching of the Gnostic to the effect that the divine essence is
distributed among the angelic emanations from deity, Paul declares that
the pl?r?ma (???????), or plenitude of the divine essence is permanently
at home in the Lord Jesus. For the totality of the divine essence, the
Gnostics had this word pl?r?ma (???????), ?fulness? or ?plenitude.? Paul
says that Jesus Christ is not only the chief manifestation of the divine
nature. He exhausts the God-head. In Him resides the totality of the
divine powers and attributes. From the necessities imposed upon Paul by
the character of the Gnostic heresy, it is easy to see that as Bishop
Lightfoot says: ?The doctrine of the Person of Christ is here stated with
greater precision and fulness than in any other of St. Paul?s
epistles.??*?
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Wuest, K. S. (1997, c1984). Wuest's word studies from the Greek New
Testament : For the English reader (Php 4:19). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Richo
You_fan_c...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> . THE COLOSSIAN HERESY
>
Not interested. Go away.
Please.
Mark