Colossians 2:23 - Exposition

Such as have (literally, are ( things ) having ) word indeed of wisdom ( Colossians 2:4 , Colossians 2:8 ; 1 Corinthians 2:1 , 1 Corinthians 2:4 , 1 Corinthians 2:13 ; 1 Corinthians 12:8 ). The antecedent of "such as" is "command merits and teachings" (Meyer, Alford, Ellicott), not "decrees" ( Colossians 2:21 ). For Colossians 2:22 supplies the immediate antecedent, and the wider sense thus given is necessary to support the comprehensive and summary import of Colossians 2:23 . The Greek "are having" brings into view the nature and qualities of the subject, in accordance with ἅτινα , such as, the qualitative relative. A certain "word of wisdom" was ascribed to the false teachers in Colossians 2:4 (note the play upon λόγος in St. Paul's Greek). They were plausible dealers in words, and had the jargon of philosophy at their tongue's end ( Colossians 2:8 , compare note on ἐμβατεύων , Colossians 2:18 ). On this the apostle had first remarked in his criticism of their teaching, and to this he first, adverts in his final resumé. "Word of wisdom" is one of the "gifts of the Spirit" in 1 Corinthians 12:8 ; but the disparaging μέν , indeed, with the emphatic position of λόγον throwing σοφίας into the shade, in view also of the censures already passed in 1 Corinthians 12:4 , 1 Corinthians 12:8 , puts a condemnatory sense upon the phrase: "having word indeed of wisdom"—"that and nothing more, no inner truth, no pith and substance of wisdom" (so Chrysostom and OE cumenius). "Word and deed," "word and truth," form a standing antithesis ( Colossians 3:17 ; Romans 15:18 ; 1 Corinthians 4:19 , 1 Corinthians 4:20 ; 1 John 3:18 , etc.), the second member of which supplies itself to the mind; and the solitary μὲν in such a connection is a well-established classical idiom (see Winer's or A. Buttmann's 'Grammar;' also Meyer). It is superfluous, therefore, as well as confusing to the order of thought, to seek in the sequel for the missing half of the antithesis. Other renderings of λόγον —"show" (English A.V., Bengel, De Wette), "ground" or "reason" (Vulgate, Klopper), "reputation" (Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot)—are partly doubtful or exceptional in point of usage, and partly overlook the pointed reference of 1 Corinthians 12:22 , 1 Corinthians 12:23 to the language of 1 Corinthians 12:4 and 1 Corinthians 12:8 . And the combination of λόγον ἔχοντα into a single phrase is scarcely justified here in face of the established Pauline association of "word" and "wisdom". Both in this Epistle and in 1 Corinthians the writer is contending against forms of error which found their account in the Greek love of eloquence and of dexterous word-play. While the first part of the predicate, therefore, explains the intellectual attractiveness of the Colossian error, the clause next following accounts for its religious fascination; and the third part of the verse strikes at the root of its ethical and practical applications. (Shown) in (or, with ) devotion to (or, delight in ) worship (or, voluntary worship ) and lowliness of mind (verse 18). The preposition "in" brings us into the moral and religious sphere of life in which this would be wisdom of doctrine had its range and found its application. The prefix ἐθελο - of ἐθελοθρησκεία ordinarily connotes" willingness" rather than "wilfulness;" and the "delighting in worship" of verse 18 (see note) points strongly in this direction. As against Ellicott and Lightfoot on the etymological point, see Hofmann, pp. 102, 103. Only so far as the worship in question (see note, verse 18, on "worship") is evil, can the having a will to worship be evil. The other characteristics of the error marked in this verse seem to be recommendations, and "devotion to worship" is in keeping with them. This disposition, moreover, has an air of "humility," which does not belong to a self-imposed, arbitrary worship. There is a love of worship for mere worship's sake which is a perversion of the religious instinct, and tends to multiply both the forms and objects of devotion. This spurious religiousness took the form, in the Colossian errorists, of worship paid to the angels. On this particular worship the apostle passed his judgment in verse 18, and now points out the tendency from which it springs. In verse 18 "humility" precedes; here it follows "worship," by way of transition from the religious to the moral aspect of tile now teaching. And (or, with ) unsparing treatment of (the) body— not in any honour (as) against surfeiting of the flesh (verses 16, 21, 22; Philippians 3:19-21 ; 1 Timothy 4:3 ; 1 Corinthians 6:13-20 ; 1 Corinthians 12:23-25 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:4 ). The "and" linking this clause to the last under the government of "in," is textually doubtful; Lightfoot cancels it; Westcott and Hort give the omission as a secondary reading. Mr. Hort regards the passage, like verse 18, as hopelessly corrupt—a verdict which we would fain believe is too despairing. If καὶ be struck out, then ἀφειδείᾳ must be attached, somewhat loosely, to the principal predicate (" are having") as an instrumental dative. On either construction, the sense appears to be that it was its combination of ascetic rigour with religious devotion that gave to the system in question its undoubted charm, and furnished an adequate field for the eloquence and philosophical skill of its advocate. ἁφειδεία , unsparingness, and πλησμονή , surfeiting— both found only here in the New Testament—and along with them "body" and "flesh," stand opposed to each other. This clause, therefore, contains a complete sense, and we must not look outside it for an explanation of the included words, "not in any honour." As we have seen, the first clause of the predicate (" having word indeed," etc.) needs no such complement. The clause "not ... flesh" is a comment on the words, "unsparing treatment of the body." On this topic the apostle had not yet expressed his mind sufficiently. He has in verses 16, 20-22 denounced certain ascetic rules as obsolete, or as trifling and needless; but he has yet to expose the principle and tendency from which they sprang. He is the more bound to be explicit on this subject inasmuch as there were ascetic leanings in his own teaching, and passages in his earlier Epistles such as Romans 8:13 ; Romans 13:14 ; 1 Corinthians 7:1 ; 1 Corinthians 9:27 , which the "philosophical" party might net unnaturally wrest to their own purposes. He could not condemn severity to the body absolutely, and in every sense. The Colossian rigorism he does condemn—

These two objections are thrown into a single terse, energetic negative clause, obscure, like so much in this chapter, from its brevity and want of connecting particles. In 1 Thessalonians 4:4 the phrase, "in honour," occurs in a similar connection: "That each one of you know how to 'gain possession of his own vessel" ( i.e. "to become master of his body:" see Wordsworth and Alford on the passage; also Meyer's reference on Romans 1:24 ) "in sanctification and honor ". The contempt of Alexandrine theosophists for physical nature was fatal to morality, undermining the basis on which rests the government of the body as the "vessel" and vesture of the spiritual life. Their principles took effect, first, in a morbid and unnatural asceticism; then, by a sure reaction, and with equal consistency, in unrestrained and shocking licence. See, for the latter result, the Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia ( Romans 2:1-29 . and 3.); in the Pastoral Epistles, the two opposite effects are both signalized. The rendering "value" given by Lightfoot and the Revisers seems to us misleading; τιμὴ means "value" only in the sense of "price," as in 1 Corinthians 6:20 , and this surely is not their meaning. πλησμονὴ has been taken in a milder sense by the Greek commentators, Luther, and others: "satisfaction" " ( legitimate ) gratification." So the apostle is made to charge the false teachers with "not honouring the body, so as to grant the flesh its due gratification." But this rendering confounds the "body" and the "flesh," here contrasted, and gives πλησμονὴ a meaning without lexical warrant (see Meyer and Lightfoot). And the sentiment it expresses errs on the anti-ascetic side, and comes into collision with Romans 13:14 and Galatians 5:16 . πλησμονή , in the LXX and in Philo, as in earlier Greek, denotes "physical repletion," and is associated with drunkenness and sensual excess generally. Hence we cannot admit the interpretation of Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, who make the "flesh" here the sinful principle generally, and understand "surfeiting" figuratively, supposing the apostle to mean, that the ascetic rules in question, while they dishonour the body, tend to gratify the carnal mind." This gives an idea true in itself, and agreeing with the sense of "flesh" in Galatians 5:11 , Galatians 5:18 , but out of place here, while it strains the meaning of πλησμονή (see Lightfoot's exhaustive argument). The preposition πρὸς does not help us, meaning "for" or "against," according to its connection. We combine Lightfoot's interpretation of πρὸς πλησμονὴν τῆς σαρκὸς with Wordsworth's and Alford's of οὐκ ἐν τιμῇ τινί . The saying of Philippians 3:19 ("whose god is their belly, and their glory in their shame") contains the same opposition of "honour" to "fleshly indulgence" as that supposed here, possibly suggested by the phrase, "surfeiting of dishonor" ( πλησμονὴ ἀτιμίας ), of the LXX in Habakkuk 2:16 . Here, then, the apostle lays hold of the root principle of the false teachers' whole scheme of morality, its hostility to the body as a material organism. Such a treatment, he declares, dishonours the body, while it fails, and for this very reason, to prevent that feeding of the flesh, the fostering of sensual appetency and habit, in which lies our real peril and dishonour in regard to this vessel of our earthly life.

Here we have a suitable starting-point for the exhortations of the next chapter, where the apostle, in Habakkuk 2:1-4 , shows the true path of deliverance from sensual sin, and in Habakkuk 2:5-7 sets forth the Christian asceticism—"unsparing treatment" of the flesh indeed! The line of teaching adopted by the errorists may be illustrated by Philo's doctrine in his third book of the 'Allegories of the Sacred Law,' § 22: "'God saw that Er was wicked;' for he knows that this leathern burden of ours, the body—for Er, being interpreted, is leathern— is evil and always plotting against the soul; and it is ever under the power of death, indeed actually dead [comp. Romans 8:10 ]. Yet this all do not see, but only God, and those he loves. For when the mind [ νοῦς comp. note, Romans 8:18 ] becomes engaged in sublime contemplations and is initiated into the mysteries of the Lord [note, Colossians 1:26 ], it judges the body to be evil and hostile;" again ('On the Change of Names,' § 4): "Pale and wasted, and reduced to skeletons as it were, are the men devoted to instruction, having transferred to the powers of the soul their bodily vigour also, so that they have become, as we might say, dissolved into a single form of being, that of pure soul made bodiless by force of thought [ διανοία : see Colossians 1:21 , note]. In them the earthly is destroyed and overwhelmed, when reason [ νοῦς : Colossians 1:18 ], pervading them wholly, has see its choice on being well pleasing to God." The writer has attempted an elucidation of this verse in the Expositor, first series, vol. 12. pp. 289-303.