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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. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have 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.

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Colossians 2:16-23)

If you begin with the wrong premise, you will surely arrive at the wrong conclusion.

Incorrect worldview premise: Focusing on the external will fix the soul
Man-made solutions to God-domain problems. The soul cannot be fixed with an aspirin or a Kosher diet. Applies to religion or humanistic therapy. People can’t fix what they didn’t create.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Jesus, Matt.10:28

To WHOM therefore should you be entrusting your soul (PSUCHE)—the vital you?

Beware of trading the sufficiency of Christ for the insufficiencies of human religious ideas.

“THEREFORE” (v. 16)
- You have received Christ Jesus as Lord
- The part of you that craved sin was nailed to the cross
- The Law that condemned you as a Lawbreaker has been nailed to the cross by the Law-keeper
- Lesser powers and authorities have been disarmed and are no longer a threat

1. Choosing shadows over substance--Legalism (2:16-17)

You must move on from religious ceremony/symbols to the final substance in Christ alone, otherwise you eliminate Christ’s cross-work for you.

“Legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys but it does not adore.” Geerhardus Vos

Don’t hang your hopes of pleasing God on temporary signposts, you have the goal of your religion in Christ.

2. Submitting to a fleshly mind over spiritual thinking—Addicted to experiences (2:18-19)

You must not allow phonies to deflate your spiritual confidence and vigor in Christ.

Those medicating and mediating their needy hearts on “spiritual” experiences have lost touch with the only Mediator—1 Tim. 2:5,6

There is only one Mediator between God and man—Christ Jesus; all others are occupying unauthorized sacred space.

Those disconnected from Christ or his Body cannot possibly benefit you. At the very least, you can’t grow in love by yourself. (Eph.4:16)

3. Choosing worldly principles over spiritual weapons—Making a big deal of me (2:20-23)

The basic principles this world lives by are dead to you!
You have died to solutions of the flesh that got you into sin in the first place.

Religious choreography—making me big and Christ small

You simply cannot fight spiritual battles (matters of the soul/psyche) with physical weapons or defeat what only Christ can defeat. Proof is in the failed results...
- you can’t slay the sensual with the sensual or fight the sin by fighting the body
- you can’t tame the self by feeding the self
- you must not submit again to what Christ has replaced—deep matters of the soul cannot be fixed by the elementary things of this world

There are no man-made solutions to God-sized problems.

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