Turn with me, if you would, to
Colossians chapter two. Colossians chapter two. We are going to come back to
Colossians. It's been a little while since
we have been here, so I would like to do a quick recap of what
Paul has said and then pick up where we left off. Paul started
this letter by telling the Colossians that Christ is the creator of
all things. He is the owner. He is the controller
of all things. He is the head of all things. He is everything. That's what
Paul clearly states in this book. Christ is everything. He's everything. If you look at chapter one, verse
16, it says, speaking of Christ, it says, for by Him were all
things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible
and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities
or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is
before all things, and by Him all things consist. And he is
the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. And that word means the highest
position. That's what all of God's people
want Christ to have, the highest position. And then Paul said
in verse 19, It pleased the Father that in Christ should all fullness
dwell. All the fullness of God, all
the fullness of salvation, all the fullness of everything is
in Christ. And then down in verse 27, he
went on to say, if the fullness of Christ is in you, if you are
in Christ and if Christ is in you, then you possess the hope
of glory. Verse 27 says, to whom God would
make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you. That's the hope
of glory. He's the fullness of our hope
of glory. He's all the hope we have. Chapter
two, verse nine, he said, for in him, speaking of Christ, dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete
in Him." That's one of my favorite verse and a half, two verses
right there. You are complete in Him. You are complete. That's the
best news I've ever heard in my life. You're complete. You
are complete. Verse 12, he said, you were buried
with Him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through
the faith of the operation of God. God did this, who hath raised
him from the dead, and you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, hath he quickened together with Christ, having
forgiven you all trespasses. blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us,
and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. And having spoiled
principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing
over them in, and if you have a margin in your Bible, you'll
see that reads in himself, in himself. Paul said, if you're
a chosen saint of God, if you have received this saving
operation of God, you've been completely joined together with
Christ, as He is, so are you. His accomplishment is your accomplishment. His victory is your victory. His standing before God is your
standing before God. You're redeemed. You are freed from the curse
of sin, from the bondage of the law. You're free. Your eternal
salvation is sealed. You are secure in Him. That's what you call good news
on top of good news on top of good news. Now he's gonna finish this chapter
by saying, don't let anybody try to bring you back under the
bondage of what Christ has set you free from. The bondage of
trying to earn your own salvation. The bondage of trying to satisfy
the law. Isn't that what this flesh does?
It tries to satisfy the law, satisfy the law. The bondage
of trying to earn your own righteousness. That means your own goodness.
Christ did all that. That's what Paul is saying here.
He did all of that. The law is satisfied in him. If Christ has made you free,
you are free indeed. Now, Paul constantly says, and
he's gonna say it in chapter three, when we get to chapter
three, he's constantly saying, do we just completely ignore
our sin against the law, and our rebellion against the law,
and just say, well, we're saved by grace anyway, and just dive
headfirst? Absolutely not. God forbid. We hate our sin against
God. We hate our sin against His law. Thank God Christ settled it. Thank God He redeemed it. That's
our hope. Christ has taken care of it.
That's our hope. When it comes to salvation, Christ
has taken care of it, period. The end of verse 15, he said,
Christ triumphed over everything that was against us in himself. It's where he accomplished it,
how he accomplished it. Peter said in his own body on
the tree, by his own death on the cross, in his own blood that
he shed, he blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us. That's everything the law had against us. Every sin we
committed against God, that handwriting is against everybody. It's against
everybody. That King Belshazzar in the Old
Testament, he saw the handwriting on the wall. You're weighed in
the balances and you are found lacking. You've come up short. That has to do with every soul
on this earth. All have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. Therefore, the only hope that
any sinner has is if Christ dealt with that handwriting of ordinances
that was against us. Put it away. For his people,
that's exactly what he did. For his people, that's what he
did. Therefore, Paul went on in the rest of this chapter to
say, and this is where I want us to focus now for the rest
of this Bible study. Paul went on to say, Salvation
is not in the deeds of the law. It's not in the deeds of the
law. It's by the redemption in the blood of Christ. That's where
salvation is. It is not by works. It's by Christ. Look with me,
if you would, at verse 16. He said, let no man therefore
judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of in holy day
or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow
of things to come. Paul said, all those things are
shadows. That's what they are. A shadow is an image of an image. That's
what a shadow is. They're shadows, they're all
shadows. I'll tell you, if the Lord would
reveal this to us, we would really learn something about the scripture.
We truly would. We would learn something about
God's purpose in everything he has written in the scripture.
Why did God write that? Why did God say that? Our Lord
gave detailed instructions on how he wanted things to be done.
He gave laws, He gave commandments, what to do, when to do it, how
to do it. He gave ceremonies on certain
days, what you could do on this day, what you couldn't do on
that day. He gave commandments on what
you could eat, what you couldn't eat, how to prepare what you
could eat, the window of time you had to eat it in, whether it was to be a feast
or a holy day or a Sabbath day where you were to do nothing
at all. God gave all of those things
for a reason. It was to point us to something.
He said, if you could do these things, you would live. Isn't
that what he said? If you do this, if you could
do this, you would live. Here's a problem for a man. He
can't. Is there anything wrong with
the law and the commandments? Absolutely not. What's wrong is we can't
do it. We just can't do it. I mean,
indeed, in thought, in motive, We'll do something good for somebody
just so we can be recognized for it. That's a wrong motive. Man cannot do it. And what Paul is saying here
is if a man is clinging to something that he cannot do, he's clinging
to a shadow. There's only one man who can
do this. And if we're not clinging to him, we're clinging to a shadow.
Don't cling to shadows. Don't cling to shadows. Paul
is saying what we just read right there. He's saying none of those
things are salvation. None of them. All of those things
are shadows of an image. God does not point his people
to shadows. He points his people to the image. Christ points his people to Jesus
Christ, our Lord. Now let me show you proof of
this, all right? Turn with me, if you would, to Matthew chapter
12. Matthew 12, verse one. At that time, Jesus went on the
Sabbath day. It was the Sabbath day. Threw
the corn, and His disciples were and hungered, and began to pluck
the ears of corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it,
they said unto Him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not
lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. But He said unto them, Have
you not read what David did when he was and hungered? And they
that were with him, how he entered into the house of God and did
eat the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither
for them, which were with him, but only for the priest. Or have
you not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days, the
priest in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless. That was the Lord's response. Somebody says, well, wait a minute.
Does that mean that what God says is not important? God put
a law on this and they said, your disciples are not obeying
that. He said, well, have you not read in the law how David
disobeyed it? How the priests disobeyed? Have
you not read that? Does that mean what God says
is not important? Does that mean you can just ignore
it? Does that mean you don't have to rest on the Sabbath?
Let me ask everybody this question. Do you or don't you have to rest
on the Sabbath? If God said, rest on the Sabbath, absolutely we do. Absolutely. God's word is going to stand.
Not one word is going to fail. If God said, rest on the Sabbath,
we must rest on the Sabbath. There is no salvation outside
of resting on the Sabbath. But here's the thing about it.
The seventh day of the week is not our Sabbath. Christ is. Christ is. We are resting on
Christ. We're not resting on the shadow. We're resting on the image. Christ. Resting on Him. Turn with me
to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 1 says, for the law having a shadow of
good things to come and not the very image of the things. What were the good things to
come? Jesus Christ and him crucified. Verse one says, the law having
a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the
things can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually make the comers there unto perfect. For then would
they not have ceased to be offered? God said, take a lamb, quarter
it, burn it, as an offering to God for your sin, to appease
God for your sin. He said, if God had truly been
satisfied and truly been appeased and the sin truly been put away,
wouldn't they have stopped sacrificing lambs? Here's the answer. Yes, they would have. And they did the moment the Lamb
of God The image himself came and offered one sacrifice for
the sin of his people forever. We don't offer lambs anymore. God's people did. But once Christ
came, once the image came and we had the image, we didn't need
the shadow anymore. We see the limb of God slain
and God appeased in the image. So Paul said, don't let any man
judge you If you want to mow your grass or do work around
your house between the services today, that's the Sabbath, our
New Testament Sabbath. Or even if you want to wait until
Saturday and do it on Saturday. I had a man call me recently
and he had seen the TV broadcast and he was reprimanding me and
he reprimanded all of you. You don't know it, but you've
all been reprimanded. And here's the reason why. He said we were
not honoring Saturday like God told us to. God didn't tell us to honor Saturday.
God told us to honor Christ. We can honor and we can rest
on and we can trust in and we can rejoice in Christ while we're
swinging a hammer or digging a ditch or we can rest on the
Sabbath. We can rest on our Sabbath. The Sabbath day is just a shadow. That's all it is. Look right
here in Hebrews 10 at verse 11. Every priest standeth daily ministering
and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take
away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God. Why did he sit down? It was finished. It was finished, it was done.
He was the very saving image that all those shadows pointed
to. Go with me back to Colossians 2. Verse 16 says, 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, which are a shadow
of things to come. But the body is of Christ. Being a member of the body is
of Christ. It's not in ordinances and ceremonies
and all these things. It's of Christ. It's His work,
not ours. Based on everything that Paul
has already declared in this chapter, we just recapped it.
That work is already done. That work is already done. Christ
has already finished it. He's already made us to be members
of His body. So verse 18, he said, Let no
man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping
of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. He's talking about men
and women who put on that religious air and they worship angels and
they worship Saint this person and Saint that person full of
themselves. They're full of themselves. Verse
19, He said, they are not holding the head, capital H. Who is that? That's how we begin the Bible
study. Christ, He's the head, capital
H. Verse 19, not holding the head
from which all the body by joints and bands have nourishment ministered,
and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. He
said those who are without Christ are just vainly puffed up. But
those who have Christ are going to increase with the increase
of God. They're going to be blessed.
They're going to be nourished. They're going to be knit together
with God, with his people in love, in truth, in rest, in peace. Verse 20 says, wherefore, if
you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, what
that means is, if in Christ all the ordinances and all the ceremonies,
all the requirements are fulfilled. He said, I didn't come to do
away with all of this. I came to fulfill it. And he
did. 33 and a half years he walked
this earth fulfilling the commandments of God, the law of God, in order
to give that obedience to his people. And Paul is saying, if
in Christ all of that is fulfilled, it's already fulfilled. Verse 20, he says, wherefore
if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why,
as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances?
If Christ put an end to them, why would we want to start them
back up? If he put away the first and
established the second, why would we want to draw up the first
again? If we were in bondage to them,
until Christ freed us from the bondage. Why would we want to
go back to bondage? Verse 21 says, touch not, taste
not, handle not. Have you ever heard somebody
say that? We know what the Bible says, touch not, taste not, handle
not. Do we understand the context
here? Paul is saying, why are people saying touch not, taste
not, handle not? Verse 22, he said, which are
all to perish with the using, whatever. Our Lord said in a
place, nothing that goes into the body can defile a man. All
of his defilement is right here. His heart is desperately wicked
and deceitful above all things. How do you know? Just listen,
it'll come out of the mouth. That defilement's already there.
You can't. deaden something that's already
dead. You can't ruin something that's already ruined. Verse 21, Touch not, taste not,
handle not, which are all to perish with the using after the
commandments and doctrines of men. You know, the Lord Paul
here, the Lord saying through Paul, there are benefits to things. There are benefits to things.
And, you know, it may be beneficial to abstain from things. It is beneficial. You've also
heard people say, well, alcohol's never touched my lip. That's
great. That's probably a healthy thing
for the body. But what he's saying is it's not going to do anything
for your soul. It's not gonna do anything for
your soul. Is there benefit to living, you know, a restrained
life? Absolutely. But it doesn't do
anything for your soul. There's only one man who can
do something for our souls. And Paul is warning, if we're
not clinging to him for that, what gives you the right to go
to heaven? Alcohol's never touched my lips. It's not gonna work.
We're not gonna make it on that. What gives you the right to enter
into glory? The blood of Jesus Christ alone. Salvation has come
to you. Salvation has come. Verse 22,
which are all to perish with the using after the commandments
and doctrines of men. What he's saying right there
is men came up with all that stuff. I'm just gonna candidly ask,
how is it that drinking a glass of wine is such a sin, according
to religion, when the Lord's first miracle was turning water
into wine, serving it to his disciples, telling Paul to, you
know, pass along to the others, use a little for your stomach's
sake. He said, I won't drink of the fruit of the vine again
till I drink it new with you in the kingdom. That's all the tradition
and commandments of men. Men came up with all that. And
I was going to go just over, read sometime in Mark 7. It's
another moment where the Pharisees were interrogating the Lord.
And he said, you're all following the traditions of men, not the
word of God. And that's what all of us would
do by nature if the Lord didn't stop us from it. Turn our eyes
to the truth. Who is a person? Well, verse 23, he said, which
things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship and humility
and neglecting of the body. This religious looking way, it
does have a show of devoutness. It does have a show of humility.
It does have a show of restraint. He's saying it looks like very
much like a God honoring way. It does. It does look like a
God honoring way, but he's saying, let it be known. Don't be fooled. Don't be fooled by others. And
don't fool yourself thinking that God will be satisfied with
us clinging to shadows. He said, it's not gonna work.
Verse 23, the end of it, he said, it's not in any honor to the
satisfying of the flesh. The only thing that will have
any standing with God the Father is clinging to our Lord and Savior
himself. That's it. May God reveal that
to us. May he also restrain us. I pray
so. and give us a modesty in a moderate
way, but make God reveal to us that everything other than Christ
is a shadow. That's all it is. And I pray
God will reveal that to us through all the shadows. I love the shadows.
Nothing wrong with the shadows, as long as we realize that all
of them are just arrows pointing us to Christ, all of them. May
God reveal that to us. All right, you're dismissed.