Knowledge as Salvation a Heresy – Colossians 2:15-19

In an ancient text, Pistis Sophia, possibly written between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, the risen Jesus had spent eleven years speaking with his disciples, teaching them only the lower mysteries. After eleven years, he receives his true garment and is able to reveal the higher mysteries revered by this group. The prized mysteries relate to complex cosmologies and knowledge necessary for the soul to reach the highest divine realms. The story of Sophia is told as an example. This is considered a “gnostic” text, a false teaching Paul the apostle was seeing the beginnings of as it circulated to Colossae, and one he must correct.

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. (Colossians 2:16-19, ESV)

Paul is outlining some of the falsehoods propagated by the false teachers. We have already seen that circumcision is something they were requiring, making it seemingly apparent that this is a Jewish form of this false teaching. Here Paul adds that dietary restrictions are also part of the teaching as well as observance of the Jewish festivals, sacrifices (“new moon” was the first of the month sacrifice mentioned in Numbers 28) and Sabbaths. Paul asserts that these were never meant to be the substance of our relationship with God but were rather a shadow cast by the real thing, an anticipation of what was coming with Messiah. The kingdom changes everything. Old wine skins cannot hold new wine. New forms are necessary for the new order of things with Jesus’ coming. For these teachers to continue to require these shadows is to deny who Jesus is and what he has accomplished with his coming.

The false teachers further require “asceticism” (Greek, humility, but a false one in reality) and worship of angels. We don’t know exactly what this meant to them, whether adoration of the angels who appeared to them in visions of the afterlife or whom they had appealed to for help against demons, or something else entirely, but it was fundamentally contrary to the Scriptural injunction to worship God alone.

The word translated “going on in detail” has been variously understood as “claiming an inheritance via one’s visions of mystical experiences,” “initiatory entry into a mystery cult via visions of the mysteries,” or “going into detail about heavenly ascents experienced in visions.” In either case, what the false teachers were seeing, and encouraging the Colossians to experience, was leading them into demonic falsehood, the kind that led them to arrogant and sensual thinking.  We see similar claims in Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Scientology, and numerous other sectarian forms of supposed Christianity.

The sum of these teachings appears to be the beginning of the evil one and his false teachers to infect Christianity with what became known as Gnosticism and mystery religion. Gnostics (from the Greek word for ‘know’) taught that salvation came from special knowledge revealed in mysteries. The idea that knowledge, even specially revealed knowledge, can save us is a denial of just how sinful and perishing we are. Our problem is not lack of knowledge but a rebellious heart that will not hear the knowledge, that represses the truth (Romans 1:18-20).

Another false philosophy of Gnosticism generally was that the material world was evil. This is why they upheld the idea of semi-gods. The true God could not create something evil, so He must have created lesser gods who did the creating of the physical world. And if physical stuff is evil, then we must abstain from certain foods, marriage and sexuality, and for sure give proper credit to these semi-gods (angels?).

The Colossians will be disqualified if they adhere to these false teachings. They will demonstrate that they no longer embrace the faith delivered to them by apostolic witness and were therefore never true believers. If they are genuinely saved they will hold fast to the Head, to Jesus. Relationship to him nourishes and knits together the whole body with divinely inspired growth. What are you clinging to?